


Scared to Live (But I'm Scared to Die)

by Major_816



Series: Paralyzed [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Neil Josten, Graphic Description, Hurt Neil Josten, I promise, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jean is a crusty baguette, M/M, Maeve is amused, More tags to be added, Neil Josten Is an Idiot, Neil Josten as Nathaniel Wesninski, Neil is a devil and Jean's little fox, Oblivious Neil Josten, POV Alternating, Physical Abuse, Protective Neil Josten, Rape/Non-con Elements, Raven Neil Josten, Raven!Neil, Riko Moriyama is His Own Warning, Sassy Neil Josten, Slow Burn, Soft Jean Moreau, Soft Neil Josten, it should all end up okay, no beta we die like men, our boys are soft and sassy, this is honestly pretty dark but she has her moments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:22:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 47,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29546499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Major_816/pseuds/Major_816
Summary: Neil Josten goes to the Nest for Andrew, but he stays for a lot more.~"I'm sorry Coach," he muttered."For what kid?" Wymack shifted. "You've got to give me something to work with here."Wymack watched the thin traces of sorrow as paper exchanged hands and he was looking down at a contract with the Edgar Allan Raven's."I signed them Coach, I'm sorry."~The one where Neil doesn't come back from Winter Break.
Relationships: Andrew Minyard & Jean Moreau, Andrew Minyard & Original Character(s), Neil Josten & Andrew Minyard & Jean Moreau, Neil Josten & Jean Moreau, Neil Josten & Original Character(s), Neil Josten & The Foxes (All For The Game), Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: Paralyzed [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170734
Comments: 104
Kudos: 88





	1. Wanted Man

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to this menace of a work! 
> 
> My sister and I absolutely fell in love with this series when we read it and we both feel like there's so much material outside of the books that's just waiting to be explored. After extensively reading through as many fics as we could get our hands on we decided to give our own gander at writing one. Between Jen's ideas, and my experience with novel writing we really truly hope that we've created something that you guys will love!
> 
> For each chapter, we will post content warnings and will provide short summaries for any of the more graphic sections for those of you who might not feel comfortable reading some of the material, but we are going to do our best to keep things relatively tame for our own sanity. With that in mind, the book is going to cover some really dark and uncomfy topics so please do be prepared for all of that, though I can't see it being much worse than canon (if not a little more explicit in some areas).
> 
> Without further ado, please enjoy!
> 
> \- Mac & Jen <3

_“You’re not going,” Kevin said._

_“Do you know what he’ll do to you?”_

_“Do you know what he’ll do to Andrew if I don’t go?” Neil said. “I don’t have a choice. I have to go. You have to trust me.”_

_“He will break you.”_

_“He wishes he knew how,” Neil said. “Trust me. I promise I’ll come back, and when I do I’ll bring Andrew back with me. It’s going to be fine. So do you have my ticket or don’t you?”_

_Kevin pressed his lips into a hard, white line and looked away. “I have it.”_

~Neil~

Neil might be sick. He’s used to lying, or he’s supposed to be. He’d been a liar for years on the run, giving fake names and telling stories of fake lives. He’d been lying to the Foxes the entire year so there shouldn’t be anything different about lying to Kevin now except somehow there just was.

But he lied through his teeth just like his mother taught him. Even she might have been proud of the bullshit that just sprouted from him.

None of this, any of this, was fine. But Kevin wasn’t arguing with him anymore, and honestly, he looked even closer to being sick than Neil felt.

“Kevin,” Neil muttered. “ _It’s fine, I swear it_.” Kevin still didn’t look up, his face paling more and more by the second and a thin sheen of sweat collecting on his temples. Kevin looked seconds from dropping dead, and Neil wasn’t really sure how he was meant to fix it. “ _Do you trust me_?” That got Kevin’s attention. Kevin’s head snapped up and his eyes locked onto Neil’s.

Slowly, Kevin nodded, his jaw locking up and something close to determination sliding into place. It wasn’t a spine—Neil wasn’t sure Kevin would ever regrow that—but it was good enough for the time being.

“Coach.” Dan looked over at Wymack when the silence stretched out between Kevin and Neil and it became clear that neither of them would say anything else. “Let’s go home.”

There were a few glances thrown at Neil and Kevin, silent inquiries as to the conversation spoken in violent French. Neil ignored them all, and Kevin’s eyes stayed fixed on the floor by Neil’s shoes.

There were hours before the Banquet was supposed to be over. Neil knew that Wymack knew that, but their coach showed no signs of considering an alternative. It was the right call. If Neil saw Riko again before the night was up, he’d break his damn neck—no he’d do much, much worse things.

He was getting uncomfortably close to vomiting where he stood, and it certainly wouldn’t be all too reassuring to anyone if he did. He had to keep his shit together long enough to get Kevin back on the bus and back to Palmetto. Neil could fall apart when he was back in his dorm, alone in his bed knowing everyone else was safe. He could last that long.

He compiled a list; of everything he’d do to Riko if he had the chance. It kept his nerves under control but made his stomach roll for other reasons. His father might have smiled if he could have seen it. It brought Nathaniel closer to the surface than Neil wanted him, but it stopped him from losing his mind right there on the bench.

He slowed but couldn’t get himself to stop. It was too hard to lie to himself. Neil could bully Kevin into handing over the plane tickets, he could bully himself into getting on the flight. But he wasn’t about to convince himself everything would be fine.

Neil knew exactly what sorts of monsters were waiting for him in the Nest.

He was distracted enough by his list and the concentration it took not to be sick in the middle of the Banquet, that he hadn’t noticed when Renee slipped away until she was back, Katelyn and Thomas trailing dumbly after her with puzzled expressions.

Neil stumbled along smoothly until they were back on the bus, his head already in the Nest. Riko couldn’t be worse than the Butcher surely, and Neil had survived his father for ten years. He’d survived another eight years on the run. Riko couldn’t be worse. There wasn’t much worse to get was there?

What would Andrew make of all this? He wouldn’t be grateful, wouldn’t shake Neil’s hand and offer up a smile. He’d probably kill Neil himself, and Neil would probably let him.

Neil **should** let him.

An aborted laugh pressed the insides of his cheeks and curled his lips into a smile that was more grief than amusement.

The bus ride back was silent. Neil leaned his head against the glass of the window, pressed against his skin like softened shards of ice. He could hear them all breathing, soft murmurs of conversation dancing over the seats. His Foxes were alive and safe around him. Tomorrow he’d get on a flight to West Virginia and they’d keep breathing, keep living, keep being safe.

He knew what he was walking into, but he could justify it. For the Foxes; for Andrew.

He’d lived a life full of pain, first his father, then his mother. It seemed like pain clung as tightly to him as his shadow did. But he could never say that any of it had been for anything. His father had been senselessly abusive, Lola needlessly cruel. He could understand the fear-driven rage that saturated every harsh touch of his mothers, but she’d still died in the end.

But this?

There was a point to this. Neil’s pain for his Foxes safety. That was the trade he was making, and he knew it would be bad, he knew there was a damn good chance he might not walk back out of the Nest as Neil Josten, but he couldn’t have forced himself to make another choice. Not in this life.

Neil settled in the seat that Andrew should be in and let the muted sounds of the Foxes lull him into something beside peace. He didn’t sleep, didn’t dare to close his eyes, but he sat there and tried to find some sort of rest.

It was late when they finally got back, late enough Neil’s eyes felt weighed down by bricks and the murmurs and whispers of conversation had long since slipped into silence. And still none of the Foxes could sleep. Not after the Banquet, after **Riko**.

Wymack dropped the dates off at the student dorms first before driving the team up to Fox Tower. They went in together, crammed shoulder to shoulder in an elevator not meant to fit eight athletes. They stepped off together, a bustle of movement and jostled elbows, and Kevin passed Neil a folded paper itinerary, their sides touching and the others moving behind them.

Neil didn’t have to open it.

He gave Matt the slip when the Upperclassman tried to drag him into the girls’ room to talk about what happened. Neil didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t have the energy and he didn’t understand how they did. He gave them a tired smile, a half-excuse and ducked into his own dorm.

He closed the door behind him, kicking his shoes off to one side.

His mind was a hive of bees, stinging and unsettled. His hands pushed the window open, fingers curled around the cold ledge. He tried to light a cigarette, anything to take the edge off, but his hands were shaking too badly, trembling for every second the breath jumped in his lungs. He stared at them for a long moment, trying to force them to be still, but the longer he looked the worse they shook.

He ended up crawling into bed fully dressed, only checking the departure time so he'd know how early to set his alarm. Then he shoved the paper under his pillow with Andrew's bands, something to deal with another day.

**Tomorrow**.

He pulled his blankets over his head to block out the room and willed himself to stop thinking.

When Neil finally slept, he dreamed of death and blood.

* * *

For the first ten seconds after he woke up, Neil forgot about Riko and Evermore and Andrew. It was a near peace. He forgot about the bees under his skin and for ten seconds his hands were relaxed and still. Ten seconds was all the peace he was allotted.

There was movement in the other room, Matt shuffling around.

The other Foxes were flying out today, too. He knew Allison, Renee, and Dan were flying out to Bismarck together around lunchtime and would split up shortly after they landed to head their separate ways. Two hours after they were in the air the rest of the Foxes would be en route to LaGuardia.

He’d passed Matt's invitation along the week before exams and let Nicky do most of the work. It was easier than he’d expected once Kevin got past his ‘I want to play Exy’ stint and realized there were Exy courts in New York too.

Neil was relieved they’d be far away and together and safe, it fell over him like warm shower water chasing away the residual tension. But there was guilt curling in the pit of his stomach now. Nicky's original plans to go to Germany for Christmas derailed after Thanksgiving. He didn’t want to be far from Aaron, or Andrew for that matter, but Erik couldn’t take the time off to come here. In the end, it meant Matt was Nicky’s last, and only, chance for a fun holiday.

And here Neil was, about to throw another wrench into the plan.

How he was supposed to tell them, he hadn’t figured out. The truth—like it had been all year—was off-limits. None of them would let him go through with it if they knew where he was going. It wouldn’t matter what kind of danger Andrew was in, or what kind of danger they were in, the Foxes would sink their claws in and hold him there.

It was a small miracle in itself that Kevin was going along with any of this. He knew more than any of the Foxes what Riko was capable of, and he most definitely knew what was waiting for Neil in West Virginia. It was almost a nice thought that maybe Kevin trusted Neil to hold his ground; a more likely thought that he knew what Riko would do to the Foxes if Neil refused. And it was more likely still that Kevin didn’t really know the whole truth of Riko’s horrors.

So long as Kevin kept his mouth shut it didn’t make a difference to Neil.

He shoved his blankets aside and sat up, his mind fishing around for an escape. Not an escape, no, an excuse. Neil wasn’t escaping anything anymore. He’d lost the chance to run the second he said yes to the contract. He might have even had a chance until the interview with Kathy. But he was beyond escaping now. Even if he packed his bags and ran, left the Foxes and Kevin and Andrew behind, the Moriyama’s would find him. There was no disappearing into nothing this time around.

He lifted his pillow to get his phone and hesitated at the sight of Andrew’s armbands. Andrew would kill him if he saw him now. He’d be furious, in that odd manic way that he could be. What would that anger look like when the drugs were stripped from his system? What would Andrew be like free from that manic cell?

They had an understanding the two of them. Neil looked at Andrew and he saw someone who’d hit the end of his rope and held on. In the same way that Neil was nothing and no one, Andrew had nothing and no one. They were different and the same, separate lives knotted together with the same twisted understanding.

Would that understanding still be there? Would Andrew still be that solid presence in Neil’s life? Would, would, would.

There were too many questions and not enough answers—not enough time for answers.

In the end, it wouldn’t matter. Neil would wind up dead by May, at the hands of the Moriyama’s or his father’s people. Whatever understanding he and Andrew had, whatever sort of family he forged in the Foxes convoluted ranks, it would amount to nothing. He was allowed to play along, for now, teasing the idea of friendship and family and normality—not that mafia engaged sports were normal—but it would be taken away from him. **He** would be taken away from it.

His fingers twitched, and he squeezed two tight fists. Just to remind himself that, at least for now, this was still real. **He** was still real.

Nicky’s voice coming from the other room jarred him from his thoughts. He dropped his pillow again before it clicked: he had a way out, and Andrew had given it to him. He grabbed his phone, flipped it open, and put it to his ear. By the time Nicky pushed the bedroom door open without knocking, Neil had struck up a conversation with no one at all.

“Yes, I saw it,” Neil said, glancing over at Nicky to acknowledge his entrance.

Nicky’s mouth was open for a greeting, but he fell quiet when he realized Neil was on the phone. Instead of leaving—Neil had never been more grateful for Nicky’s curiosity than right now—Nicky got comfortable against the doorframe to wait him out. Neil was counting on that.

In the months since Andrew had first handed Neil this phone, none of them had ever once seen him make a call on it. Neil had been betting that alone would be enough for Nicky to stay. Neil signalled to Nicky that he was almost finished and half-turned away in a false attempt for a little more privacy.

“What did you expect? You waited this long to figure it out. By now I’ve already made other plans. I—” Neil cut himself off, listened to silence for an extended moment, and bulled on. It felt a little ridiculous, but he’d gotten used to this sort of lying over the years, the sort where there was an audience to fool—an audience all too invested in the dramatics. “But how long have you known he was coming? You could have said something. I don’t know. I said I don’t know. I’d have to—” Neil scrubbed a hand across his eyes as if the entire conversation was exhausting to deal with. Honestly, the whole ordeal was too exhausting to deal with, and here he was, dealing with it anyway. “Okay. Goodbye.”

He clicked his phone shut and dropped it off to one side.

For a minute, silence reigned. For a minute, Neil wondered if his little show had been enough. Then Nicky came into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

Neil sagged back against the wall and watched in his peripheral as Nicky climbed halfway up the ladder to his bunk. Nicky folded his arms across Neil’s pillow and stared at Neil.

“Everything okay there?” Nicky asked. There was genuine concern in his question, and it was enough that Neil had to fight not to choke on it.

“I’m fine.”

Nicky just looked at him. “We’ve known each other forever by now. At some point, you’re going to have to stop lying to my face. That didn’t sound fine and you don’t look fine. So what’s really going on?”

Oh, Nicky. Sweet, predictable Nicky. Neil felt sick using him like this, but the thought of Andrew, helpless and suffering through withdrawal with a monster down the hall was worse. So much worse.

“My uncle’s flying to Arizona for Christmas,” Neil said.

“Good thing? Bad thing?”

“Both?” Neil shrugged against the wall. “He’s a good guy, but he’s usually smart enough to avoid my parents. I haven’t seen him in years, and he’s never come over on a holiday. Something must be up. I just don’t know what. I don’t know if…” Neil trailed off and gestured helplessly. “I promised myself I’d never go home again, but.”

He saw the way Nicky’s face changed, even as minutely as it did. Nicky was relating to him, remembering how desperately he’s wanted to make things right with his own parents. He saw Nicky looking at Neil Josten and seeing himself reflected there. Would Nicky forgive him when he found out all of this was a lie? Would any of them?

“But you want to see him again,” Nicky concluded.

“It doesn’t matter,” Neil said. “I told Andrew I’d stay with Kevin.”

“But Kevin’s going to be with us,” Nicky said, “and we’re going to be with Matt and Matt’s mom. The four of us can keep an eye on him if you need some time with your family. You need money for a ticket?”

“I already have one,” Neil said and held up his folded itinerary. “Mom emailed it to me a couple days ago. I just didn’t want to deal with it before the banquet.”

Half-truths and half-lies folded together seamlessly, knitted and pressed and ironed out until there was no telling where the truth ended and the lie began. Nicky ate up every single thing Neil offered, greedy for any sort of chance to help out a friend—to help Neil who had given only the barest of bones of his ‘past’.

“You’re hopeless,” Nicky said. ‘If you want to go, go. You’ve done more than enough for us this semester, Neil. At some point, you’ve got to think about yourself. Watch,” he said when Neil shook his head. “I’m going to go tell the others, and they’ll all tell you to go home. You’ll see.”

“But—” Neil said, but Nicky was already gone.

Neil swallowed down the rest of his argument. It wasn’t a fight he wanted or needed to win, anyway. For a moment he pitied Nicky for being so gullible, but Neil took no satisfaction in what he’d just done. Again, he’d used Nicky to get what he wanted, sent Nicky out to do all the leg work for a plan he didn’t know he was a part of.

His mother would be proud. His father even. And Neil hated that more than anything.

He unfolded the itinerary slowly and studied it with a sinking feeling in his stomach. In two hours, he’d be on a flight to Charleston, West Virginia. In two hours, he’d be boarding a plane to the Nest, to Riko and Tetsuji. He’d be playing right into Moriyama's hands. And he wasn’t scheduled to come back until the night of New Year’s Eve. That was two weeks alone with the Ravens.

Two weeks alone with Riko.

The suite door banged as Nicky went back to his room to consult with Aaron and Kevin. When Matt walked into the bedroom a couple of seconds later Neil was expecting him.

“What are we going to do with you?” Matt asked.

“Sorry,” Neil said. And he thought he might actually be sorry. For the lies all year, for the lies now, for taking the trust that he’d been given and using it like this. They’d all be furious with him when he got back, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold it against them if they could never trust him again.

“What for?” Matt waved that off. “When's your flight?”

“Eleven-ten, if I go.”

“You’re going,” Matt decided. And it was a victory then, Neil getting his way, but it felt awful. “I’ll give you a lift to the airport.”

Neil grimaced at him but got out of bed at last. It wasn’t hard to play at reluctance. He’d be less willing to actually go see the family he had left than he was to go to the Nest.

He wasn't hungry but he made himself eat some instant oatmeal and toast. He had to look something like normal. Nicky returned to say he’d told all of the Foxes what was going on. Apparently, they all wanted Neil on that plane. Neil nodded and said nothing, and Nicky left him in peace to get ready.

He showered and dressed, stuffed his duffel bag full and only paused for a moment when he realized somehow, he’d gotten to the point where he had more possessions than he had space in his bag.

Neil was as ready to go as he was going to get, but he wasn’t ready to walk out of the room just yet. He sat on his desk and breathed in the empty space. He’d come back. He was a Fox; this was where he belonged. He would be back, and Andrew would be back, and everything would be fine.

He wasn’t that good of a liar.

Neil should have known he wasn’t going to leave without Kevin stopping by. He didn’t expect some valiant effort to convince him not to go, Kevin didn’t have the balls for that, but he saw something coming.

Kevin was a shadow in the doorway, stationary and tense as a trigger. It was clear he had something to say, but it was equally clear he was still trying to find enough of a spine to say it.

“Can I give you something to take with you?” Neil asked, his hands were busy in his duffel, playing with the half-folded tags of the top shirts. “Will you promise to keep it safe? I don’t want to leave it here, but bringing it with me…” Neil didn’t have to finish that thought. Kevin knew. The Nest was not a place where things could be kept safe.

Neil looked over, and the seconds passed between them. When Kevin nodded, Neil moved, digging his binder out of the safe. It took everything Neil had to hand it over, and even when Kevin’s fingers closed around it he couldn’t quite let it go.

“Don’t open it.” He might have intended for it to be a question, but it came out as an unquestionable command.

“I don’t want to know,” Kevin agreed.

Neil let go, watching his binder, the single most important thing he owned, settle in Kevin Day’s folded arm, tucked against the other striker’s chest.

Neil pushed the safe closed, locking it back up even with nothing left in it. He put it back where it belonged and climbed to his feet.

“Neil,” Kevin said.

“I’m coming back.” But it was more for his own sake than for Kevin’s now. It was a promise. He had things left here, possessions he was leaving behind, friends. He had built a whole life as Neil Josten right here. It didn’t matter what happened once he left, he was coming back. “You promised you’d finish this year with me. I’m holding you to that.”

“Neil,” Kevin stressed. “I mean it.”

Kevin didn’t have to say what he meant. They both knew. Still, Neil frowned, his head slipping to the left a little. This he hadn’t expected. Kevin was an asshole, rude and barrish and aggressive. Neil figured that was his way of caring, but this was bordering on sentimental, on **apologetic**.

Kevin cleared his throat and clarified, and Neil wasn’t expecting it at all. “I need Neil Josten to come back.”

Understanding fell slowly over Neil, cooly schooling his features into false ease, Neil nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

“ **No** ,” Kevin pressed, and this was not at all what Neil had predicted. This was Kevin feeling. This was Kevin looking at Neil like he knew him again, like they were friends, and asking him to keep Neil Josten alive. “Your best isn’t good enough.” And that sounded more like the Kevin Day Neil knew. “I **need** Josten.”

Neil wanted to make a joke, mention that Kevin could probably win games just fine playing as the only striker on the court. Neil Josten wasn’t supposed to be anything more than that. But Neil Josten had sunk his claws in deeper than he’d expected him to. Neil Josten had stopped being a mask somewhere between Millport, Arizona and the Winter Banquet and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it.

Truths and lies knitted together, truths and lies so close he couldn’t tell which was which. Truths and lies and truths and lies and somewhere nestled in the mess of it all Neil Josten became something real. As real as Nathaniel Wesninski and Abram Hatford were. Truths and lies and the three facets of himself, his three truths pooling into something real and whole.

Stitched together and **true**.

And he didn’t know what to do with that at all.

Instead, he spoke softly. “I can’t make that promise.”

Whatever Kevin was gearing up to say, his face all scrunched up like he was trying to turn his emotions into words, he didn’t have to. Matt poked his head in with a lopsided grin.

“Hey, you ready?”

Neil picked up his duffel, slid the strap over his shoulder and pulled his lips into a semblance of the grin on Matt’s face. There was still panic in his eyes that he couldn’t hide, but if Matt saw it he must have assumed Neil was just nervous about heading home.

“ _I’ll keep the binder safe_ ,” Kevin said in French. “ _You keep Neil safe_.”

Neil couldn’t answer that; he wouldn’t answer that. He wasn’t sure **who** would come back out of the nest, but he made the decision right there that **someone** would. Neil or Nathaniel or Abram, he would walk out of there a real person.

Riko wouldn’t take that from him.

He turned his body towards Matt, took the first step towards the door and tried to stop his hands from trembling. “Yeah, let’s go.”


	2. Sacrificial Saint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil leaves Palmetto and arrives at the Nest where he begins a very careful (reckless) game of survival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Lovelies! The second chapter is here! This one is just a bit longer than the last is (though it’s looking like that might become a bit of a trend…whoops)
> 
> Warnings for this chapter are pretty tame: Tetsuji and Riko come into their roles here, so keep an eye out for a little bit of violence starting during the locker room scene when Tetsuji and Riko come in. There’s nothing worse than canon and it’s all kept very vague, but there will be a short summary in the endnotes in case anyone is uncomfortable.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> \- Mac and Jen <3

~Neil~

He couldn’t say goodbye to Matt, so he didn’t.

Matt pulled up at the airport, glanced over to Neil with a soft sort of smile on his lips and Neil climbed out without a word. He held his hand up in some weak half-hearted attempt at a wave, tugged his lips into some semblance of a smile, and he shut the door.

It was the best he could do.

With Christmas lurking around the corner like some striped and sparkly monster, the inside of the airport was chaos. Neil let himself get swept up in the mess of it all, let himself get bumped around all the way through security. He was just another face in the crowd, nothing memorable or remarkable about him. He faded into the sea of faces and coasted all the way to his gate.

Most of the seats there were already taken, and of the ones still available, Neil didn’t like his choices. He stood instead, his back pressed against a wall and his finger tapping idly against his thigh.

His mother would be livid. Her hands would be scratching and beating and clawing at him until he turned around and went hightailing it in the opposite direction. She’d bite at his heels until he was in Mexico, until he was back in Europe, bunkered down and sheltered. He could feel the phantom pain of her touches and fought a flinch at the ghost of her voice dripping ice on the nape of his neck.

His mother wasn’t here.

He looked out at the crowd of people waiting for flights. He’d expected to see more of his classmates, but there was no one he recognized anywhere. Maybe they’d all gone already or were still hovering around the fringes of campus. Maybe they were half-awake in their childhood beds listening idly to the sounds of their families, or maybe they were packing away the last of the presents they’d bought from the campus stores with nervous excitement for the break.

Maybe didn’t mean much. His mother wasn’t here, his classmates weren’t here.

He was alone.

It’d been almost easy to keep himself calm this morning. Between his trick phone call and his conversation with Kevin, he’d kept his mind busy enough reassuring everyone else that he hadn’t had to worry about what he was walking into. Any panic that bled through was played off as nervous energy at an unpleasant reunion. He’d kept it tightly bundled and packed away and put on a show of reassurance passable enough his friends had let him walk away.

If he closed his eyes tightly enough, he might be able to convince himself too.

He could pretend a little longer, couldn’t he? He could pretend that his family was something close to normal, that Uncle Stuart was coming down for the break and they’d spend the holiday trading gifts and laughing about all the antics the Foxes got up to through the year.

No.

It wasn’t a future Neil ever could have had, and it wasn’t one he’d try to trick himself into believing. His holidays had been filled with fear, muscles tense and sore from trying to hold still, jaw aching from keeping it clenched shut. His holidays had been him desperately trying to avoid any mistakes, to smile the right way at the right time and be enough of a child to pass as normal but enough of an adult not to upset his father’s temper.

On the run, they’d been finding a hand-me-down thrift store sweater on the pillow beside him because his own was threadbare and falling apart and that was it. It was sneaking remains of a Church Christmas dinner from a back table when the congregation was busy and hiding out in a motel room instead of an abandoned building. He’d never celebrated holidays even remotely close to normal.

If he went to New York…

Neil shut it down before he let himself think about it. Another impossibility. Somehow it felt further away than his false family Christmas did. Maybe because he was leaving it behind, maybe because some part of him knew he’d given it away, that he’d never have the chance to hold it again. Because it could have been true, and he was denying himself it.

A few months ago, Neil would have been grateful for this space. Standing alone in an airport with a fixed plan.

But he felt wrong.

His fingers curled around the phone in his pocket. If he’d opened it there would only be one name in his call history. It was enough of a reminder.

Andrew.

He was doing this for Andrew.

They called his flight, the gate-attendants voice crackling over the speaker and startling him out of his little reverie.

Facing Riko like this, head on in Raven territory, went against everything Neil’s mother had ever taught him. She'd raised him as Abram Hatford; raised him to run, to sacrifice everything and everyone to ensure his own survival. His mother had never given him any ground to stand on.

Maybe that was why he hadn't been strong enough to save her in the end. A jumble of lies had nothing to fight for.

But Neil Josten was a Fox. Andrew had called this home; Nicky had called him family.

Neil wasn't going to lose any of it. If two weeks with Riko was the price to keep his team safe, Neil would pay it. Somehow those thoughts made the flight easier. Neil even managed to doze through part of it, but he woke when they landed.

Jean was waiting for him in Arrivals.

He watched Neil's careful approach with a cool look on his face, something almost regretful hidden in his eyes, and there was an edge in his voice when he spoke that gave him away.

“You shouldn't have come.”

Neil shrugged. “There wasn't an option to stay.”

Jean’s eyes were more telling than Neil had expected, perhaps more telling than Jean wanted them to be. “There was.”

Neil felt himself go rigid under the weight of that assumption, his body crafting itself into a weapon, into the knives he feared, the cleaver his father held over his head. He repeated himself, firm in his knowledge of Riko’s cruelty. “There wasn’t.”

Jean nodded slowly, something like hope flashing, something like understanding.

“Glad to see I was wrong about you,” Neil mused. He knew it would snag Jean’s attention, a carefully placed bait to show exactly who the backliner was. This was a careful game they were playing now, a game of hidden intentions and decidedly accurate attacks. This was Neil trying to pull the truth of Jean to the surface and Jean deciding if Neil could be trusted with that truth.

Jean lifted his chin, shoulders squaring. “I do what I have to so I might survive him.” Him being Riko. And Jean really was showing his cards, wasn’t he? He leaned forwards, making a bit of a show out of wrapping an arm around Neil’s shoulders in a proper greeting for the public eyes. Even if Neil wasn’t recognisable Jean was, and any Exy fan in the area would have put it all together. Jean hissed lowly in his ear. “I haven’t ever enjoyed it.”

Neil let Jean pull him through the airport and out to a waiting car, cataloguing the little truth and the concealment. “The Banquets?”

Jean huffed lightly, “I have to go home with him at the end of it, pardon me for not deliberately pissing him off.”

Neil watched Jean with careful eyes, scrutinizing every movement, sliding his way under the backliner’s hard-fought facade.

“I can forgive that.”

Jean’s eyes were sharp, dangerous, and Neil knew he’d found his mark. “I wasn’t aware I’d asked for your forgiveness,” he hissed.

Neil shrugged lazily, half lifting one of his shoulders. This was all posturing, the two of them working each other out cautiously, neither of them willing to let their walls down long enough to get a clear shot. “You didn’t,” he amended. “But you haven’t stopped feeling guilty either, have you?”

Jean flinched back, the cracks Riko’s abuse had left in his foundation spreading now, widening enough that someone like Neil—like Nathaniel—could weasel his way in.

“You know nothing.”

Neil shrugged again, just as mindlessly, and he let the first traces of his father’s smile fall over his lips. He was riding a fine line here, straddling Neil Josten and Nathaniel Wesninski. Jean could be an ally, a **friend** even, or he could be Neil’s downfall. Neil watched the shifting in Jean’s eyes and wondered for a moment if he might not be both.

“I know enough.”

Jean bristled, “If Day-”

Neil waved off the mention of Kevin easily. “Kevin hasn’t told me much of anything about you.” He paused long enough to watch the strike land. “Not sober anyway, and once he’s drunk enough to cry about the Nest things stop making sense. He blabbers on about you helping him out, leaving you behind, and in the morning, he goes back to living like he never knew you.”

“He-”

“Let’s you and me make this clear,” Neil interrupted, leaning forwards in his seat. “I’m not Kevin Day. I know a survivor when I see one, Jean, you haven’t gotten this far by chance. What you’ve done you did to survive.” Neil relaxed his posture, leaning back into his seat and letting his wall lower enough to give Jean a peek at the truths stirring underneath. “I’m not about to fault you for that.”

Jean watched Neil, and from behind the mask of Nathaniel Wesninski, Neil watched back.

The rest of the ride was silent, Jean and Neil sitting there staring each other down. It was a careful game, but for every second that passed Jean relaxed a little more, allowed Neil a little closer.

At the first sight of Castle Evermore, Neil's blood started humming in recognition, and he saw the shields slide back over Jean’s features.

Evermore looked more like a daunting monument than it did an Exy stadium, made only more imposing by the jet-black paint job. It was twice as big as the Foxhole Court. Neil doubted the Ravens could fill every seat at every game, but the US Court likely sold out within hours of posting their matches. Neil could only imagine what game nights sounded like inside.

The car stopped at a gate and the driver, blocked from sight by the dividers between the seats, reached out his window to type in a code. The gate swung open with a quiet squeal that set Neil’s nerves on fire, and they drove into the barricaded parking lot.

There was a line of cars parked uniformly in the lot. He almost wished he was surprised they were all identical, but Neil had a sinking feeling it’d be something he was going to be too familiar with too quickly. Someone, likely Tetsuji, had even gone so far as to customize the license plates. The EA didn’t take Neil long to place as Edgar Allan, but he hesitated on them a moment longer before the numbers settled; class years and jersey numbers.

“This isn't a team,” Neil said. “It's a cult.”

Jean looked him over carefully and the car came to a stop in the parking slot left open for them. “I think you know better.”

Neil flashed him a cutting grin. “I do, don’t I?”

**There.**

It was there for a second and then gone, traced out by the coldness of Jean’s facade. Amusement. Lightening cold grey eyes long enough Neil felt assured in himself.

“Get out.”

Neil shouldered his duffel and did. Jean was a heartbeat behind him, walking in time with him. Was that intentional, or had the synchronicity of the Nest sunk so deeply into Jean that he did it unawares, syncing himself up with whoever was closest?

Jean put in another numbered code at the door, Neil’s eyes following the unconcealed movements of his fingers gracefully. There’d be no way for him to use it, but he felt a little more secure knowing he knew it.

The light flashed green, and Jean tugged the door open before pausing there, his kindness disguised as a warning.

“Take a look at the sky, Josten.” His words twisted gravely on their way out, and Neil understood what Jean really meant. “You won’t see it again.”

Neil didn’t look away from Jean, the set of his jaw just as sharp as the backliner’s. “I’ve seen it.”

Jean’s smile was a tragedy, a warning Neil should have known better than to ignore.

**Andrew** , Neil reminded himself. **Andrew, Nicky, Kevin, Dan, Matt, Allison, Renee, Aaron, Abby, Wymack.**

They were the reason he was here. They were the reason that, when Jean yanked the door the rest of the way open and gestured smally for Neil to head inside, Neil went with his chin lifted and Nathaniel Wesninski pulled over him like armour.

The door had opened up into a narrow stairwell going down, offering room enough for one person to fit comfortably. Everything was painted black. The only light and colour offered came from a red tube of light down the middle of the ceiling. Even still, it wasn't quite bright enough. When the door slammed behind them Neil almost tripped down the stairs. He put a hand to the wall for balance and slowed down. At his back, Jean didn't rush him.

He supposed that was telling in itself. Jean wasn’t any happier to be here than Neil, and he certainly wasn’t any more eager.

He counted steps, wanting to know how deep they were going, and made it to twenty-six before the stairs dead-ended at another door. Jean reached past him to put in a third password Neil carefully tucked away, and they stepped together into the Ravens’ living quarters.

“Welcome to the Nest,” Jean said. It sounded mocking and crude, like the Frenchman loathed everything about his supposed home. Neil supposed he did.

“Cult,” Neil said again.

There was a puff of breath above his shoulder, where Neil knew Jean’s face to be. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but Neil knew amusement when he heard it.

Jean took him for the full tour. With a simple glance, the place itself wasn’t bad. Neil figured it had to be that way based on how much time the Ravens spent locked in here. When they weren’t in class or on the court this is where Tetsuji and Riko’s little birds were meant to be.

The Nest was spacious and well-stocked. Jean took Neil past two full-sized kitchens, a lounge complete with a bar and pool table, and three dens with TVs. A long hall connected the social quarters to a weights room, and another hall took them to the dormitory.

A sign on the wall indicated Black Hall was to the left and Red Hall to the right. Neil looked both ways slowly, but there was no telling them apart. It wasn't worth asking about, so he followed Jean into Black. Neil peeked into the open doors as they passed by them. The bedrooms were almost as big as the suite Neil shared with Matt and each one was outfitted with only two beds.

Neil could see the appeal of the place. The Nest had the potential to be everything a college athlete could want—except for the low ceilings and the dark decor. Apart from the fleeting swatches of red everything was black, from the furniture to the sheets to the towels draped over desk chairs to dry. The shadows were sucking the air out of the room and Neil was suddenly keenly aware of the weight of the stadium overhead. He wasn't claustrophobic, but he thought two weeks down here might change that.

“Here,” Jean said as he came to a stop.

There was a room on either side of them. The left room was split clean down the middle, one side occupied and lived in, the other abandoned. Neil took in the limited array of belongings, the plainness of the occupied space. Jean’s room.

The right room was cluttered on both sides, but Neil was close enough to see one side had long since collected dust. Neil took a step closer, not daring to move into the room uninvited. Postcards of faraway cities both foreign and domestic were taped to the walls. Beneath each one were scraps of paper. Kevin's now-familiar scrawl listed dates and explanations for the travels. Most of them were games. Some indicated photoshoots and interviews. Books lined the shelves built into the headboard and Neil knew from skimming the spines they were Kevin's.

“Riko’s in denial,” Neil said. “Someone should tell him Kevin’s not coming back.”

“You’d think he’d already have learned.”

It wasn’t the response Neil would have expected from the Jean Moreau he’d met at the Banquets, but Neil wasn’t stupid enough to believe that front was true to the person behind it.

“Tell me I’m not stuck in here,” Neil muttered. “I can already hear Kevin yelling at me for touching his things.”

Another amused puff of air from the space Jean’s head should be hovering around.

“No,” Jean agreed. “You’re with me.”

Neil nodded, and after one last look at the haunted space of Kevin’s side of the room, Neil turned for the room he was meant to share with Jean.

“I’ve lived in worse places.”

Jean followed him in wordlessly, shifting on his side of the room as Neil set his duffel down on the bed and ran a hand over the black sheets.

“I’m sure you have.”

Neil turned over his shoulder to look at Jean, a careful smirk tugging at his lips. “I’ve lived with worse roommates too.”

Jean’s face remained almost blank, but there was no denying the spark of amusement in his eyes. Despite himself, Jean wasn’t as hostile as Riko would have liked him to be. A facade indeed.

“I’m sure you have.”

The edges of a smile, the lightness of a laugh. It wasn’t much of anything, not after Neil had spent so much time with Matt and Nicky who felt so openly. But it was familiar still, traces of Andrew’s dull apathy under the manic grin. A different mask, but the same task.

Neil jumped on it. He needed Jean on his side, he needed **someone** on his side and Jean was the only one Neil felt like he could trust. “So, do you always keep it like this, or did you clean up just for me?” He turned all the way, seating himself on the edge of the bed that was to be his for the next two weeks.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Jean replied smoothly. He leaned against the wall, long body almost effortless, but there was a quick tension in his shoulders; a slip of pain.

Neil hummed. “Doesn’t look like my side’s ever been used.”

Jean studied him for a moment, and Neil wondered if he’d pressed too far too quickly there.

“No,” Jean finally answered. His voice was quieter, held less of the superior air he played at. “It hasn’t been, Riko never let me have a partner, not for long anyway.”

Neil let his head tilt. “Why’s that?”

Jean’s eyes were dark but not guarded, so quickly he’d started opening himself to Neil. Was this what the Nest was? Had it made Jean so desperate for companionship that he didn’t care who he found it in?

“You know why.”

Neil hummed softly, considering. “You’re right,” he conceded. **Nathaniel, Nathaniel, Nathaniel**. He heard the echoes bouncing in his mind, that other self squirming right at the surface where Neil had brought him. “I do.”

Jean watched him a moment longer, both of them studying, evaluating, deciding.

Jean was good. Neil could see that. Under the false air of superiority and scorn, the walls of pride and arrogance. He was terrified of Riko’s wrath and what it meant for his health and he did everything he could to avoid it. Neil had already said it. There was no faulting Jean for the actions that had kept him alive.

“Let’s go.”

Jean didn’t wait to see if Neil followed, rightfully assuming that he would. They went up a flight of stairs one floor to the Raven's locker room. Neil almost stopped to look, but Jean was moving straight through and Neil trailed after him, already certain that anywhere that wasn’t next to Jean was immediately more dangerous.

And then they were standing in the inner court right by the home benches.

The Ravens were in the middle of a nasty scrimmage. Neil watched and within the first thirty seconds there’d been upwards up ten brutal, red-card worthy hits dished out. The rest of the Ravens stood to watch and as Jean pulled up next to them with Neil in tow, heads turned.

Neil hadn’t been expecting a warm welcome, but the open hostility and cold disinterest were nearly startling. He turned back to the scrimmage.

They stayed long enough for the scrimmage to end and Riko to wander over. He gave Neil a once over and nodded to Jean speaking in rapid Japanese. When they turned Jean held the door for Riko who veered one way. Jean’s hand closed over Neil’s elbow and tugged him in the other.

It wasn’t until Jean was handing him a Ravens jersey with JOSTEN emblazoned on the back right above a red ‘4’ that Neil understood.

“I’m only here for two weeks, Riko really shouldn’t have gotten me presents.”

Jean settled into a neutral frown. There were other Ravens hovering, and until they were alone again Neil could expect Jean’s guards to hold.

“Don’t play stupid, surely Kevin told you about your summer transfer.”

Neil tossed the jersey aside. “He did, I told him it wasn’t happening. Didn’t he pass that along?”

Jean snatched the jersey from the air, casting a look around the locker room before fixing his steely glare back on Neil. “Try not to get us killed on your first day you stupid devil.”

“Us?”

Jean looked around again, but by now only the two of them were left in the room. His eyes were just as vengeful, but his posture less defensive. “Listen very carefully.” He shoved the jersey back at Neil, but he refused to take it. Jean caught hold of his coat instead, yanking Neil close. “You lost the right to be an individual the second you stepped into the Nest, you know that. From now on the consequences of your actions are no longer yours alone. I’m sure Kevin’s told you about the Ravens pair-system, from now until you leave I am the only ally you have.”

Neil refused to react, to the words or the proximity. He saw the fear lacing Jean’s anger, he saw the clear lack of a threat. This wasn’t Jean being an asshole, this was Jean’s attempt at saving their skins before Neil had the chance to ruin them. “

My success is your success,” Jean continued. “Your failure is my failure. You go nowhere unless I am with you, you do nothing unless I am doing it. If you break the rules we both suffer. Do you understand? They want us to fail, they want to break you, and take starting line-up from me.”

Somehow Neil heard that for the threat it was. Jean was starting line-up, or he was dead. Like Neil, Jean was property. He made himself useful or he was disposed of.

“And yet you stay.”

Jean nearly snarled, but there was no anger in it, just a desperate horrible fear. “I have no choice. There is nowhere for me to go. Kevin is not like we are, he’s valuable but not property. He escaped because he had family to run to.”

Neil blinked, the pieces struggling to settle. “Andrew?”

“I said **family** , you hard of hearing imbecile.” Jean let go of Neil, shoved the jersey at him again. “His father.”

“His…” Neil found his hands gripping the jersey. “Oh.”

Jean didn’t look as pleased as Riko might have, in fact, he looked closer to being sick than anything. “Change out,” Jean said instead. “See if it all fits.”

Neil hesitated for a moment, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d get any privacy, certainly not from Jean.

**You lost the right to be an individual.**

Neil changed, pretending not to notice the intent look Jean gave his array of scars. It fit too well, alarmingly. Neil felt it choking him, tightening terribly around him until he had to get it off. But he held still, letting Jean survey him closely.

“Good,” Jean nodded. “Put it back, you won’t need it until the afternoon practice.”

And Neil did. He was sliding his coat back on when the door opened. He didn’t see who came in, but he saw the change in Jean. Saw the reluctant hope drain away and saw paralysing terror take its place. Neil looked back to see Tetsuji and Riko in the doorway. Neil didn’t miss the walking cane in Tetsuji’s hand or the crooked grin on Riko's face.

Tetsuji didn’t need a cane.

Riko locked the door behind them and Neil didn’t give himself the time to think about why those locks needed to be there. He needed his mind now, with sharks in the water and Jean at his back. Partner or not Jean wasn’t safe, not yet.

Neil watched critically as Tetsuji crossed the room to stand before him. “Nathaniel Wesninski,” he said like he found every syllable wanting. “Kneel.”

If Jean had thought him stupid before what was he going to think now? Stupid and stubborn? Suicidal and Crazy? Neil wasn’t sure if any of them were untrue. He hid his hands in his pockets so he could clench them into fists. “No.”

He thought Jean might have said his name, but it was barely louder than a breath of air. Neil didn't look back at him. He didn’t think it was his imagination that Riko took a half-step back to put more space between himself and his uncle. A man who could keep even Riko in line wasn't a man to challenge so carelessly, but Neil had no choice.

“You will kneel,” Tetsuji said.

Neil had a feeling he was going to regret this for the rest of his very short life, he could hear Andrew laughing and mocking him for it already, but he smiled and said, “Make me.”

Neil saw the cane come up, but it was too fast for him to have any chance to dodge. It caught him in the face across his cheek and the side of his mouth. He stumbled under the force of the blow and crashed heavily into the lockers. He didn't feel it; he couldn't feel anything but the fire eating through his skull. A sour flash across his tongue might have been blood but Neil's mouth was too numb for him to be sure. He brought a hand up instinctively to check his skull for fractures, but Tetsuji's cane caught him in the ribs next. Then his shoulder, and his arm, until Neil had no choice but to ball up and protect himself.

Tetsuji didn't stop beating him until he finally passed out.

* * *

Neil woke up delirious to a cold cloth pressed against his forehead and something stinging on his side. His eyes snapped open and he recoiled instinctively from the body hovering near him.

“Hey! Hey, relax.”

Neil recognized the voice, stitched it together with the image of Jean Moreau, and that didn’t help his flurry of panic.

“ _You stupid fool, stay down, you’re hurt_.”

Neil stopped fighting, not because of the command there, or rather the request, but the language. He knew Jean spoke French, he’d spoken to him in French, but Kevin had made it abundantly clear that Riko hated it.

French meant trust.

“Jean?”

Jean’s relieved huff was...comforting.

“ _Yes, you bastard child, would you lay down please_?” Still in French.

Neil blinked up at him, the lights swimming into focus and blurring the world around him. He squinted and the ache in his body rushed to life, a fire in his skull and burning across his ribs. He sunk back into the bed, his bed, back in his and Jean’s room.

“ _Thought I was the devil?_ ”

Jean huffed again, and Neil could make out the antiseptic wipe in his hand now. Jean was cleaning his wounds. “ _Somehow you’re both._ ”

Neil took that for an answer, blinking dumbly as Jean went back to work wiping at what had to be a large cut on his side based on the way it stung.

“ _Wait-_ ” Neil struggled for a second, Jean’s words from earlier rushing back at him. One of Neil’s hands went up instinctively, cupping Jean’s cheek and twisting his head right, then left. “ _Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?_ ”

Jean froze, eyes a fraction too wide and a fraction too startled by Neil’s surprise act of compassion.

“I-” Jean swallowed. “ _He didn’t hit me, just you_.”

The relief Neil felt was unprecedented, the loyalty to a man he’d only just met. It wasn’t something Neil was used to. But the Nest was kill or be killed in a way Neil wasn’t familiar with. He’d spent years running with his mother by her side, her voice sick in his head; don’t trust anyone, Abram. But Neil wouldn’t get out of here not trusting.

He’d woken up to Jean helping him, to a terrifying clench in his gut when he realized he might have gotten Jean hurt too. Whatever fragile thing they had between them, Neil clung to it and he could feel Jean hanging desperately onto the other end.

Three and Four.

Even if Nathaniel had been meant to be Three once, even if Jean had been meant to be Four. Somehow, they’d still ended up here, relying on each other to get through the next few weeks.

Neil let go of Jean’s cheek but squeezed his shoulder on the way down.

“ _Thank you_.”

Jean’s eyes were still too wide, still a little too frightened, but there was a determined edge there now too. Jean nodded once, held his gaze a moment longer and set back to work.

“ _Practice starts soon, you’ll play as a striker because that’s what the public knows you as, you are to defer to Riko, you cannot be better than he is, but you must be better than the others_.”

Neil frowned, forehead creasing. “ _I can’t outplay the Raven strikers, even healthy I-_ ”

Jean’s gaze was on Neil’s again, stare heavy and set. “ _You can and you will, do not forget what happened, it will only get worse for us both._ ”

Neil nodded. He didn’t have much, but at least now he knew he had Jean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo, there’s that!
> 
> The violence was pretty limited, but it basically entails Tetsuji’s cane beating, and in the final scene Jean is cleaning Neil up with some anti-septic and Neil mentions his pain levels a few times
> 
> But JEAN
> 
> We really wanted to focus on his character here because it didn’t seem natural for Neil and Jean to just immediately start bickering and bonding, so we tried diving into Jean’s character a little bit to figure out what would be necessary to get to that sort of space
> 
> Because of that, this chapter is mostly them orbiting each other and making jabs and comments to intentionally press each other’s buttons. Both of them are not very good at trusting people but can both realize that they’re in a situation where they don’t have another option
> 
> By the end of the chapter Jean has made his decision, and in response, Neil makes his so be prepared for lots of wonderful bickering next chapter
> 
> Phew, sorry for that rant there (Jen and I are 100% a part of the Jean Moreau Defence Squad lol)
> 
> OH, next chapter we introduce a new Original Character! Jen and I are super excited for you to meet them, we put a lot of time into fleshing out their character as much as we could
> 
> The next chapter will be up on Thursday, our plan is to continue updating every Sunday and Thursday, we’ve got a lot of the book already written so the days in between gives us ample time to edit and revise as well as write the new material for further down. The schedule might change further down the road, but for now, Thursday and Sunday will be posting days for the book.
> 
> I think that's everything for now, of course, comments are absolutely amazing and it's such a thrill to see you guys interacting with the story!
> 
> Next Time:
> 
> “A devil,” Jean deadpanned, gaze steady on Neil’s. “You are a devil sent to plague me.”
> 
> Neil hummed, forcibly swallowing half-chewed corn. “I’m still not sure if it isn’t the other way around.”
> 
> Neil cast his eyes back to his plate when Jean directed his focus back to his book. He wasn’t so distracted as to not sense the approach of another player, but he jumped regardless when their body dropped down into the seat across from him.
> 
> Neil’s eyes found Jean first, and they turned to the stranger slowly, two animals cornered and unsure of their safety.


	3. Sunrise, Nathaniel, and Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil struggles through his time in the Nest with Jean as his unlikely ally, a new character is introduced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Three here we go!
> 
> Jen and I are BEYOND excited for this chapter, when we started writing the book Jenna had a fever dream sort of an idea that led to the creation of an entirely new character. We worked tirelessly (literally pulled three all-nighters almost back to back) to flesh out this character and make them as dynamic and dimensional as we possibly could and we're so freaking excited to finally share them with all of you!
> 
> A quick summary of things so far: Neil had a lot of introspection about his anxieties and had a pretty emotional goodbye with Kevin, he arrived at the Nest and he and Jean engaged in a strange little game of poke the bear until they (following Tetsuji's cane beating) stumbled into a tentative alliance.
> 
> Content warnings for this chapter: inherent dislike of vegetables, the existence of Riko Moriyama, the after-effects of sustained emotional and physical traumas, a wee little bit of psychological warfare, referenced physical abuse, and a panic attack
> 
> It shouldn't be anything too heavy, but it's all in there if you look for it so stay safe you lovely people.
> 
> Enjoy!  
>  \- Mac and Jen <3

~Neil~

It wasn’t that Neil didn’t see it happen. 

He didn’t just blink and all of a sudden everything had changed. It was in the small moments at first, in the privacy of their room, or when they were the only two left on the court, bruised bodies cleaning up after the others were done for the day. Now it was bigger and existed publicly through the Nest. 

He’d been in the Nest for six days, nine days, both and neither. Time was different in the Nest, the Ravens sixteen-hour day holidays ignoring the sun and the body’s natural cycle. It had been sixteen hours nine times since he’d arrived, one hundred-forty-four hours, six sets of twenty-four.

Somehow, in those six days, he and Jean had gone from begrudging allies to… well Neil wouldn’t call them friends exactly, but then, that’s exactly what it was. In six days, Neil had forged a connection with Jean—out of necessity perhaps—that had taken weeks with the Foxes. 

There was an easy friendship between them now, comfort in each other's presence. They were partners on and off the court, fiercely dependent and defensive of each other. Neil knew he could be vulnerable around Jean, weak, and Jean could do the same around him. 

Jean was safe.

At the very least, Jean had finally come to a decision about whether Neil was a bastard or a devil. Though if he was particularly snarky, he might still get graced with both.

In six days, they’d tuned in to each other's behaviours so closely it felt sometimes as if six years had passed. In some ways, six years  **had** passed. 

It was the reason Neil could sit here beside him, completely relaxed despite the Ravens around them and complain about the number of vegetables on his plate, slipping in and out of French seamlessly.

They’d gone four out of six days without the opportunity to sit for an actual meal. They’d been forced to survive on protein bars and smuggled fruits when they got three minutes to breathe, anything that could be swallowed in the same bite was ideal. Anything they could breathe in would have been better. Riko had been running them thin, from practice to ‘chores’ to practice to ‘entertainment’. 

Neil wasn’t sure what was worse, the gnawing hunger in his stomach or the dull but constant ache of the bruises on his ribs.

“ _ I just don’t understand why there has to be  _ **_four_ ** ,  _ Jean,  _ one is more than enough.” Neil speared a boiled carrot with his fork, frowning at it as if it had wronged him personally. After four days of not eating he wanted to be happy he was eating at all, but vegetables…

“ _ You have not had a vegetable in four days, devil, four vegetables for four days of missed meals. _ ” Jean didn’t bother to so much as look up from the textbook he’d brought with them. If they were being given time to eat now, they couldn’t be sure they’d get time to study later.

Neil let his face twist into a pout. The other Ravens were off in other sections of the room, there was no one close enough to see him. “ _ You could have, _ ” Neil paused to shove the carrot ruthlessly into his mouth, shrugging as he swallowed it down faster then he needed to. “ _ I don’t know, given me four days worth of one vegetable?  _ Four days worth of carrots _? Carrots aren’t  _ **_so_ ** _ bad _ .”

Jean reached out with his own fork to nudge the celery sticks closer to Neil. “And celery is?”

“ _ Celery tastes like wet air, with strings that get caught in my teeth, it’s not right _ .” Neil gave a shudder to enhance his disgust, one that Jean watched with a cool unimpressed gaze. 

“ _ You will be the reason I die _ .”

Neil ignored him, pushing the vegetables on his plate around again and giving another shrug. “Couldn’t we have fries? Potatoes are vegetables, no?”

Jean sighed heavily as if truly distressed by the younger man next to him. “Potatoes are starches, too heavy. You need good calories, nutrients, proteins.” Jean pushed Neil’s plate closer to him again, a pointed look down at the vegetables Neil was trying to talk his way out of. “ _ And you need them quickly, so shut up and eat your vegetables before I have Lauriel make your smoothies with kale _ .”

Neil winced, but he rolled his eyes at the threat. Jean was more bark than bite, at least with Neil. But dutifully he scooped up loose corn and stuffed it into his cheeks. “Yum.” 

“ _ A devil _ ,” Jean deadpanned, gaze steady on Neil’s. “ _ You are a devil sent to plague me _ .”

Neil hummed, forcibly swallowing half-chewed corn. “ _ I’m still not sure if it isn’t the other way around _ .”

Neil cast his eyes back to his plate when Jean directed his focus back to his book. He wasn’t so distracted as to not sense the approach of another player, but he jumped regardless when their body dropped down into the seat across from him.

Neil’s eyes found Jean first, and they turned to the stranger slowly, two animals cornered and unsure of their safety. 

She didn’t look like a threat, she was taller than Neil, though admittedly that wasn’t hard, and her hair was dark and heavy, her skin tanned deeply. Her eyes were bright, friendly and warm. After the cold grey of Jean’s eyes and the bored stare of Andrew, the warmth and happiness there unsettled him.

“Oh, you guys look like  _ shit _ , have you even slept this week?”

Neil glanced sharply at Jean, French dancing seamlessly off his tongue. “ _ Who is she? _ ”

Jean studied her a moment longer before meeting Neil’s eyes. “ _ Number twenty-four, offensive dealer, a freshman. _ ”

Neil blinked slowly. “ _ I meant her name _ .”

Jean glanced at her quickly and shrugged. “ _ Number twenty-four _ .”

Neil stared at him for a moment, his gaze only pulled away when Twenty-Four herself spoke.

“Is that French?” She was definitely too happy, Neil almost couldn’t believe it was real. “My mom told me I should have studied it, but I didn’t care to. Probably should have listened now that I think about it. D’you speak other languages too?”

“ _ If we don’t answer _ ,” Neil cut a determined look at Jean, who pointedly ignored him in favour of his textbook. “ _ Do you think she’ll leave? _ ”

Neil wasn’t sure what he was hoping. He didn’t particularly want her gone; she didn’t seem like she meant them any trouble the way the others often did. But there was something about her easy happiness, the way her face set naturally into a faint smile and soft eyes. 

Neil made a point not to trust people who seemed too good, it only meant they were better at hiding their truths than most others were.

Jean glanced up from his book, eyes flickering between Neil and the stranger at their table and humming lowly. “ _ Not likely _ .” 

“Hey, could I have your celery?”

Neil turned back to her to find her leaning halfway over the table already, arm stretched out to grab it as soon as he said yes. He wondered if she might grab it anyways. 

Neil felt a grin split across his face the second Jean’s burning stare landed on him. He nudged his plate closer to her with a quick nod of his head. 

“Absolutely.” He tilted towards Jean, eyes still on the happy offensive dealer crunching her way through his celery. That did it for him. She still exacerbated a sort of happiness that made him remotely nauseous, but she had a little snark of her own tucked away and she ate his vegetables for him. “ _ I like her _ .”

Jean huffed a little more dramatically than he needed to, but Neil let him have it. “ _ Of course you do _ .”

Twenty-Four folded her arms against the table, leaning her weight onto them and shifting herself forwards. Neil saw Jean’s reflexive shift backwards and edged himself a little closer to his partner.

“Neil Josten, right? And Jean Moreau of course.”

Neil nodded slowly and she grinned.

“Maeve Murphy.” She stuck out a hand Neil shook carefully. “I’ve heard all about you guys obviously, numbers Three and Four. You guys are like, I mean you’re kind of like a living legend. I think it’s really cool.” She shrugged as she chewed on the end of a celery stick, eyebrows pinched like she was still thinking. “I mean, most everyone else here hates you, they’re jealous and all that you know?”

Neil choked on an unchewed bit of boiled carrot, his mind slamming to a stop. It was Jean’s hand slamming on his back that brought him back, intended more for the restart of his brain than the chunk of carrot stuck in his airway.

He coughed another moment, thoughts starting to come back to him.

**Living legend.**

He certainly didn’t feel anything legendary. He’d seen the media stories about him, about his rivalry with Riko. Sure, the media made him out to be something big, and Neil would like to think he was at least a little deserving of it after all the effort he put in on the court, but his ribs ached from the effort of coughing and he could feel the stitches of torn skin rubbing irritatingly against his snug shirt. 

There wasn’t anything legendary about this position. Not for him, not for Jean, not for Kevin. It was all some deluded bullshit Riko had dreamt up in a desperate attempt for his father’s attention. 

Jean covered for them both, though Neil wasn’t entirely sure his sarcastic musing was entirely helpful. “Yes,” he mused. “It’s very  **cool** .”

Maeve beamed at them as Neil rolled his eyes and leaned into Jean in a playful shove. “I like you,” Maeve declared, pointing a decided finger right at Jean’s chest. “You’re funny.”

Jean slipped easily into French and turned back to his book. “ _ Merveilleux. _ ”

“He’s a grumpy old man is what he is,” Neil argued. “Don’t let him convince you any different.”

Jean lifted his eyes only long enough to narrow them uselessly at Neil before ducking his head and tucking back into his book. 

Neil found strangely enough that he didn’t particularly mind entertaining Maeve on his own. She was pleasant company, cheerful and snippy enough to be fun, intelligent enough to be interesting. She had Dan’s fierceness, that much was obvious, but she expressed herself as boldly as Nicky did. It was a good mix, boldness and bravery. Neil could see her sticking around if Riko didn’t stick his nose into it.

“So, what’s it like?” she finally asked.

Neil raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, come on, being Riko’s Three and Four, is it exciting as they all say?” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder at the other Ravens in the kitchen. “You both know Kevin pretty well don’t you?”

Neil froze, his heart wild in his chest. If anyone heard, worse if  **Riko** heard.

Jean’s head snapped up, his eyes two razor-sharp blades of steel. Neil cringed watching Maeve flinch back, but he wasn’t about to tell Jean to back down, not on this. His voice came out in a low hiss, “Do not say that name.”

Maeve was still rattled, eyes wide and lips parted as she faltered under the intensity of Jean’s glare.

Neil reached out a slow hand, fingers resting on the back of hers. “Riko’s not a huge fan of hearing it.” He tried to give her a soft smile, but his heart rate was so high, and the room looked a little blurry when he thought about it. He blinked once, furiously, and the room came back into focus. “Or, well I guess he’s not a huge fan of anything really.”

Maeve blew out a trembling breath, a tentative smile fleeting on her lips. Neil pulled his hand back, satisfied enough that she was coping that he could reclaim his space. “Oh, uh, I’m sorry I didn't- well I didn’t know, nobody really says…”

Neil shrugged, trying to play it off smoothly. “It’s fine.” But Jean was casting his eyes around the room, trying to hunt out any signs that someone had heard her speaking. Neil stopped his cringe, “Just, don’t make the same mistake, alright?”

Maeve nodded a little too enthusiastically, but even as Neil pulled a settled demeanour over himself, he saw the stiffness in Jean’s shoulders, the wary glaze over Maeve’s eyes.

Jean spoke before Neil could, words a little harsher than they probably needed to be. “Don’t you have a partner to get back to?” His accent was thicker, a sure sign that he’d been well and truly rattled. Under the table Neil knocked their knees together, trying to pull Jean back down to earth. 

Maeve's face twisted into a frown, but at least she’d been pulled back from the tense edge they’d all been straddling. “Camilla?” she huffed. “She’s a bitch, I’d rather stay here and steal Josten’s veggies.”

Neil glanced again at Jean, at the tension clear in his shoulders, the sharpness of his eyes screaming like a siren going off. As nice as Maeve was, as calming and comforting and painfully  **normal** as she was, they both knew that letting her hang around them could never be anything good. The best it could lead to was yet another person for Riko to hold over Neil’s head, another person for Jean’s nimble fingers to stitch back together.

“You should teach me French.”

And just like that, the tension was gone, the conversation snapping back to normal.

Jean’s eyes stopped cutting through the Ravens around them, jumping to Maeve with a startling light. “Excuse me?”

Maeve grinned, glowing like she’d won an award and—

**Oh.**

Maybe Neil had underestimated her, maybe she read Jean as quickly as he had, maybe she’d seen the tension and the panic building and made a snap decision to redirect like Neil had been readying himself to.

“It can be our code, y’know? Three musketeer style, wreaking havoc on the Nest in secret?” She looked between them for a second. “You know the three musketeers, right?”

Neil bypassed that, stepping in for a short-circuiting Jean. “We’re not really s’posed to use it.” He realized in half a breath that he’d slid into a mimicry of her mumbling accent. It wasn’t enough Maeve noticed, but Jean knocked his knee back, the gentle reminder going both ways. 

Maeve’s frown resurfaced, confusion painting her face with creases.

“Riko isn’t a fan,” Neil conceited with a low sigh. It was more information than he wanted to give her, more information than was probably safe for her to have.

Understanding smoothed her face quickly, leaving Neil feeling vaguely unwell. “Oh,” she muttered, softly, like it was a secret or a promise she was unwilling to share. “Well, it’d still be nice to know whatever you guys are saying when you go off.”

It hit Neil like a brick, no, like Tetsuji’s cane. She intended to stick around them, long enough at least that learning French would be beneficial rather than tedious.

Jean dropped his head into his hands, his voice in low French. “ _ A devil and a leech. Oh, what have I done to deserve this? _ ”

Neil’s grin was sharp and dangerous, honed to a bite by the brightening of his eyes. “ _You were born,_ ” he teased.

Jean’s shoulders jumped with a snorted laugh. “ _ Unfortunately, so were you. _ ”

Neil looked away from his partner to see Maeve, her eyes jumping between them like she was watching an Exy match. “Yeah, no, you’re  **definitely** teaching me.”

Jean’s hand whacked Neil’s arm before he saw it coming, careful to land on the one patch of unbruised uncut skin Neil had in the area. “ _ Look what you have done, now we have a stray dog following us. _ ”

“ _ Hm, I thought we were going with leech _ ?”

Jean slumped forward, head coming down on top of the textbook he’d hardly made a dent in. Soft French left his lips, Neil recognized the words of a prayer and snickered under his breath.

“So,” Neil started, a wicked grin and bright eyes. “Maeve, do you like corn?”

“Oh, where did I go wrong?” Jean mumbled.

Maeve matched Neil’s grin taking the offered corn and sliding a dinner roll over for Neil as she hummed. “I see what you mean now, he certainly  **sounds** like my Grandpa Eddie.”

Neil, mouth filled with a too-big bite of the bun—he never thought he’d  **miss** carbs—snorted lightly. Beside him, head only just lifting from his textbook, Jean fixed his gaze intently on his own plate, ignoring Neil and Maeve’s gently teasing conversation.

“ _ A devil and a dog _ ,” Jean muttered. “ _ I know this is hell _ .”

Neil nudged him softly again. “ _ Not a dog person _ ?”

* * *

Neil should have known better. They’d made it an entire nine hours unscathed. Riko hadn’t touched, spoken to or  **breathed** in their direction.

He was trying to nap. Just a few minutes of rest before he and Jean dragged themselves back to the court to sacrifice their sleep to get a little more ahead.

He couldn’t have been there for long, a few seconds at most. It might have been longer, just a little bit. He didn’t really know, and when it came down to it, Neil didn’t much care either.

“ _ Neil, get up _ .” The French woke him up faster than the hands gently shaking him did. It was the tension in his voice, the desperation lining every sound. It was Jean calling him Neil and not Devil. “ _ Hurry up, he’ll be here soon, come on _ .”

There it was. Neil was up in a second, eyes cataloguing and identifying everything. They were in their room still, he’d fallen asleep at his desk and Jean was crouched beside him, eyes wide and terrified.

Riko was the only person that would have Jean worked up like this. Riko was coming, and Jean, sweet, gentle Jean, was trying to save his skin.

“ _ Did you hear something? _ ” Neil muttered one hand reaching up to rub at his face. “ _ Why is he coming _ ?” 

Jean stood, pacing over to his bed and dropping down, a hand tangling in his hair, messing it roughly. It was unlike him, everything about his appearance was always carefully and meticulously arranged. The thin scar on his forehead was revealed now, and it was that if nothing else that had Neil’s heart stutter in his chest. 

They were in trouble.

“ _ Jean- _ ”

The door opened.

Neil stilled, keeping his back to the door and his attention on Jean. Neither of them flinched, neither of them looked up or jumped. 

He stayed there, frozen in place, head tilted down to his desk and his eyes on Jean until a box dropped down at his feet. Neil took a slow breath, eyes sliding down from Jean’s panicked stare to the box Riko tossed at his feet. 

Hair dye.

Neil’s stomach dropped, his body turning to lead.

“What do you think, Nathaniel?” Riko asked. “Is the colour close enough?”

No, no, this couldn’t be happening. Neil couldn’t do this; he  **knew** what this was he refused. He’d dyed his hair a thousand times, he’d been seven shades of blond, five shades of brown, two shades of black, but not this colour. That reddish-brown auburn colour. 

Neil stared longer, not processing the words written there:  **deep copper** .

Riko snapped once, but it was enough for Neil to look up at him. He was stubborn, not stupid, and he knew a command when he heard one. “Are you ready?”

No. Neil would never be ready for this.

He was stubborn, not stupid, but damn if he wasn’t going to fight Riko every step of the way. He felt his father’s smile stretch across his face, and his eyes turn to twin daggers. “Fuck you.” And Neil spat at his feet.

* * *

It was the itching pain on his cheekbone that woke him up this time, not the gentle nudge of Jean’s hand or the low rumble of French. 

His palms were damp and sweaty, his face stinging, and he didn’t know why. He remembered the hair dye at his feet, spitting at Riko, he remembered several sets of hands on his wrists and his ankles, Jean’s somber eyes as he raked dye through his hair, Riko’s malicious grin as he dumped out every set of brown contacts Neil had.

He jerked out of bed, stumbling for the bathroom door with shaking legs and blurry vision. 

**No** _. _

He didn’t want to wake Jean, slumbering in the other bed. Jean, who was still gentle with him while Riko laughed and prodded and kicked. His hip knocked into the corner of the bed and the hiss of pain left him before he could stop it. He didn’t look back to see if Jean was awake, he had to keep moving. He had to.

His right hand closed around the cold marble of the bathroom counter, the left one fumbling another second for the lights.

**No.**

He choked on his next breath, a desperate whine slipping past him in a noose. His father’s face looked back at him, cold blue eyes, brown hair stained red. He was going to be sick, but worse than that, worse than the horror curling in his gut was the icy terror crawling over his skin, the cold sweat on the back of his neck.

Another desperate sound left him half-strangled with panic. He didn’t recognize himself in that mirror, he couldn’t see any of Neil Josten or Abram Hatford. 

That, the dead blue and the burning auburn, the contrast of rage and despondence, that was Nathaniel Wesninski.

**Merry Christmas, Nathaniel.**

Hands closed around him, one on the back of his neck, one on his upper arm. Nathaniel lurched forwards spinning to find Jean standing there reaching slowly for him.

“Shh,” Jean muttered, those thin hands stretching back out for him. “Neil shh, come on, hey.  _ Quiet you devil, you’ll wake everyone up, shh _ .” 

He hadn’t realized the noises he was making, the desperate cries leaving him again and again. Nathaniel was trembling, his body giving out and shutting down and there was nothing but Jean to stop him from falling.

Jean’s hands guided him down, both of them lowering until they were sprawled on the floor, Jean kneeling in front of him as he shook.

“ _ You’re alright, it’s alright. _ ”

Nathaniel’s fingers moved, running along the edge of the bandage on his cheek. He knew what lay underneath, he didn’t have to peel it back to check. Jean tracked his movements and nodded slowly.

“ _ Number Four, _ ” Jean murmured, fingers carding through Nathaniel’s hair, pushing auburn curls out of his face.  _ “Riko was pleased, in Japanese four and death sound the same _ .”

Nathaniel shook again, but it was laughter instead of terror. “ _ Four _ ,” he muttered in Japanese. “ _ Death _ .” 

“Neil…”

Nathaniel shook his head, French jumping out from his throat. “ _ Fitting, no? For the Butcher’s son? _ ”

Jean’s hands closed on either side of Nathaniel’s face holding him steady. “ _ You are not his son, you’re Neil Josten, you are better than him. _ ”

Nathaniel wanted to cut the number off, shave his head and tear out his eyes. He wanted nothing to do with his father, nothing to do with the Moriyama’s.

“Neil,” Jean said again.

Neil.

Jean called him Neil. Even with his father’s face and Riko’s brand. He looked back at Jean, the Three tattooed onto him. 

He was both.

He was the Butcher’s son and Neil Josten, he was property and an individual. He could be both, he could be Nathaniel when he needed to be, as sharp as his father’s cleaver and as deadly as Lola. But he could be Neil too, underneath the cover of Wesninski.

In the morning the sun would rise, he would put on Nathaniel, and at the end of it all, he would be dead.

Sunrise, Nathaniel and death. It was all that would be certain. But until then he would live. He’d shoulder the weight of he and Jean’s mistakes. Nathaniel knew how to take the hits and get back up, he knew how to survive. He’d keep going, find a way to get them out, and he would bring Riko down.

“ _ Neil, _ ” Jean murmured. “ _ Come you, back to bed, you need rest, tomorrow will be long _ .” 

Neil nodded, leaning into Jean’s touch, standing and leaning heavily on him. They moved slowly, shuffling back to Neil’s bed. Jean lowered him and Neil sat, Nathaniel resting just under his skin. It was armour to pull on, another line of defence.

Neil’s hand closed on Jean’s wrist before he walked away.

“ _ Thank you. _ ”

Jean’s eyes were soft, lips pressed tightly. He nodded once.

Sunrise, Nathaniel, and death. Neil came in here for his family, and he would get out for them. He would get out, and he’d take Jean with him.

Nathaniel would be their way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so there she was!
> 
> Maeve Murphy everyone! Jen and I are DESPERATE to hear what you guys think about Maeve, she's snarky enough to keep up with our sassy boys, but nowhere near as traumatized as the rest of the characters (an almost normal person? what?). The scene she was born from won't come around until WAYYY later in the book (chapter 26 if I remember correctly) but we're just as excited to share that with you when the time comes!
> 
> Riko was an ass, as expected honestly, and our poor baby Neil really struggled a bit with the psychological parts of being in the Nest at the end of this chapter :( necessary evils I guess...
> 
> And our sweetest sassiest Frenchman Jean, such a good friend, we love it
> 
> Next chapter will be the first one written outside of Neil's POV (showcasing two separate outside POVs, but shhh it's a secret) and it will be up Sunday! Until then we shall see you all in the comments <3
> 
> Next Time:
> 
> He couldn’t look at those photos anymore, he couldn’t look at Neil, bloody and bruised and broken and still fighting.
> 
> He couldn’t look at those photos and know that it was Nathaniel looking back at him, that Neil Josten was buried and locked away and—
> 
> Kevin was not equipped for this. He needed Neil Josten to come back, not Nathaniel. It was Neil Josten that Kevin knew, that Kevin had established the closest thing to a friendship he might ever have. It was Neil Josten that was his brother.


	4. Two Evils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin gets a terrible Christmas present, and Wymack's New Year's Eve goes a little different than expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again beautiful people!
> 
> As mentioned previously this chapter is both the first to be NOT in Neil's POV and to have a POV switch! Jen and I had a lot of fun playing with other characters POV's outside of Neil's and thought that including some scenes that Neil is absent for would be not only necessary but incredibly effective at furthering the story in general. 
> 
> Content warnings are limited: there's a sort of panic attack in the first bit of the chapter, and there is some description of injuries throughout, nothing too severe and certainly nothing graphic.
> 
> Enjoy!  
>  \- Mac & Jen

~Kevin~

Kevin was stuck. From the second he’d watched Nathaniel turn and walk out of Fox Tower with Matt he’d been moving through each day in a daze.

There was a chain around his chest, the links shrinking and the grip getting tighter. It was hard enough to breathe when Nathaniel left, and each day since had gotten harder. He wasn’t present in time or space. Half his mind was ghosting the empty halls of the Nest, wandering uselessly in the files of his past while the other half buzzed through the words of the Foxes around him.

“Kevin! Kev!  **Ke-vin** _! _ ” He jolted from his reverie, focusing on the Hallmark Christmas movie playing on the TV and then Nicky standing in front of him in a ridiculous Mrs. Claus baking apron. “Oh, Jesus, come on Kev it’s  **Christmas Day** ! Can you put the hurt puppy act on the shelf for twenty-four hours and  **pretend** to enjoy yourself?”

Nicky didn’t know, how could he? Nathaniel hadn’t said a thing, Kevin **certainly** hadn’t said a thing. All of them thought Neil was staying with his family, uncomfortable, struggling through awkward interactions, but safe. 

They didn’t  **know** .

“Look,” Nicky, popped a hip and angled a spatula down at Kevin’s chin. “I will personally sit on that couch beside you and talk about Exy all day tomorrow, just.” He waved dramatically at the decorations Randy Boyd had set up. “Christmas Spirit. Please?”

Nicky was trying to help. Kevin knew that, but this wasn’t making any of this any easier.

Exy was the last thing Kevin wanted to think about. It was blasphemous, one of the sons of Exy determined to ignore the complete existence of the sport, ironic almost. But when Kevin thought of Exy he thought of the rookie striker from Millport, Arizona. He thought of Exy and he saw knife-sharp blue eyes and fiery bright hair. He saw Nathaniel Wesninski and Neil Josten blending together and laughing on the elevator ride down from the East Tower, screaming in the depths of the Nest.

Kevin couldn’t think of Exy. He **couldn’t.**

Nicky was watching, waiting for an answer.

“I’m fine, Nicky,” he grumbled.

Oh and he sounded like Nath- **Neil** now. Sounded like the brown-haired brown-eyed boy hiding a crooked grin and sharp tongue.

His chest got another increment tighter, and it was just that little bit harder to breathe.

But Nicky rolled his eyes, waving him off with a flick of the spatula. Across the room Aaron scoffed, muttering under his breath about the improbability of the medical treatment being applied in the Christmas movie. In the kitchen Matt laughed with Erik, Randy Boyd chattering as they made a breakfast they promised to be completely unhealthy.

And for a second, if only that one second, it felt like things might be okay. 

Kevin looked over at the stairs, waiting for Natha- **Neil** to come down on silent feet and request they switch to an Exy game. If he waited long enough Andrew would come in from another cigarette break on the back deck. Neil would jump into a full analysis of the latest game and Andrew would tell them all the creative ways they could go to hell while calling them Junkies.

He could see it; he could  **believe** it.

His phone went off in his pocket, shattering whatever vision he’d put together. He **knew** that sound, one reserved specifically for **him** and **him** alone.

He didn’t have to check his phone to know it was Riko.

“Who’s that?” Aaron asked, leaning over the arm of his chair to look.

Kevin felt the colour run out of his face, the blood draining out of him completely. He couldn’t breathe, whatever chain was wrapped around him it had tightened all the way, leaving no space for anything but panic.

Nat- **Neil** was dead, that was all it could be. He was dead and Riko was here on Christmas Day to rub it in Kevin’s face. He was dead or—Andrew. It could be Andrew hurt somehow in that stupid facility.

“It’s just Coach, he’s asking about a drill I mentioned to him before we left…” Kevin trailed off aimlessly, stunned into silence by his own words. When did he learn how to lie? How long had he spent with Natha- **Neil** to pick that up?

Nicky shouted out at him from the kitchen. “It’s  **Christmas** ! Does  **nobody** take this holiday seriously?! Exy can wait until-”

“I’ll just call him quickly,” Kevin interrupted. Nicky stomped into the living room and it was only years of honing his reflexes, stepping out of the way of hits and swipes and aggressive movements on and off the court, years of surviving The Master and Riko’s ruthless drills that had him yanking his phone out of the way and twisting around Nicky’s extended reach. “He’s alone right? I’m sure he just wants to hear a friendly voice.”

Nicky softened, a gentle sigh leaving him. “Okay, but when you come back we’ll be talking about your newly grown heart!”

No-one stopped Kevin’s mad dash for the stairs, taking them three at a time to get into the spare room he was sharing with Aaron. He didn’t try for calm or collected or anything of the sort, he just moved as quickly as he could, and no one followed him.

The door shut behind him loud enough he flinched, sinking quickly against the bed. He was going to pass out, his hands were shaking, and he couldn’t get a full breath. His phone was in his pocket, he had to get it out, he had to check, he needed to know.

He nearly dropped his phone, the shake in his hands getting closer and closer to violent. One text, four attachments. They downloaded slowly. Images or videos, images or videos, images or videos? Kevin wasn’t sure which one would be worse, which one meant worse things. They couldn’t be Andrew, Andrew was in Easthaven and even Riko couldn’t touch him there. But Nat- **Neil** , he was vulnerable. He needed a drink, was it too early for vodka?

It was the memory of Andrew and Nath- **Neil** beside him, flanking him every time he had to take on Riko, supporting him, that got him through the download. 

Natha- **Neil** taking down Riko on live television to cover for Kevin faltering beside him. Andrew pushing his head down and snapping at him to breathe when the Edgar Allan buses sent him tumbling down a rabbit hole of panic. Nat- **Neil** jumping down Riko's throat at the Banquet to draw his attention off of Kevin again. Andrew using his body to shield Kevin from anything potentially antagonistic. 

The two of them were a barrier between him and the wickedness of the Moriyama’s, putting themselves in the way each and every time.

Kevin was alone in this room, Andrew was alone in Easthaven, Nath- **Nei** _ l _ —Neil—was alone in the Nest.

The images loaded, each one a different shot depicting a bruised, stitched and bleeding Neil and Kevin definitely wasn’t breathing now.

There was a bold four freshly tattooed on Neil’s face. His hair was dyed back to that red-stained brown Kevin remembered it to be, his eyes—in the one photo they’re open for—were blue and glaring right through Kevin. 

He stared a second longer at the hate and rage curling in those eyes. They were the same eyes that Kevin saw in too many nightmares, flashing back to the top of the East Tower all those years ago. They were the same eyes that watched the Butcher of Baltimore take a man apart and shone with excitement ten minutes later on the Exy court.

Neil was fighting.

Whatever hell Riko was putting Neil through, he was  **fighting** _ back _ .

He was making it worse surely, making it infinitely worse. Kevin could see the marks on his arms where he’d been held down and restrained. There were no signs of Neil doing anything willingly, but he was doing them anyway. Riko’s fists and Riko’s knives leaving him with no other option.

Kevin stared at those eyes a moment longer and it wasn’t Neil Josten looking at him, but Nathaniel Wesninski; a cold-blooded raging son of a murderer.

His phone slipped through his fingers, cluttering to the ground and Kevin couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t stop any of it. He let Neil walk out with Matt, let him get on that plane and head straight into Evermore and the Nest and Riko’s waiting arms.

He couldn’t look at those photos anymore, he couldn’t look at Neil, bloody and bruised and broken and  **still fighting.**

He couldn’t look at those photos and know that it was Nathaniel looking back at him, that Neil Josten was buried and locked away and—

Kevin was not equipped for this. He needed Neil Josten to come back, not Nathaniel. It was Neil Josten that Kevin knew, that Kevin had established the closest thing to a friendship he might ever have. It was Neil Josten that was his brother. The Foxes were Kevin’s family, as reluctant as he was to admit it. Andrew and Neil were his brothers, the upperclassmen and Nicky and Aaron. They were  **family.**

Neil Josten needed to come back. Kevin wasn’t sure what he’d do if he didn’t.

If he had to be Nathaniel Wesninksi to get through the Nest, Kevin could understand that. But if Nathaniel Wesninski came back to Palmetto…

**Please** , Kevin begged,  **let Neil come home.**

* * *

~Wymack~

Wymack had no interest in watching a ball drop or counting down until midnight to welcome in the start of a brand new year of bullshit. He never had. 

It was a fruitless dream thinking that a resolution and a fresh three hundred some odd days could make a difference. What could make a difference was hard work, was second chances and someone showing they cared—no matter how. So Wymack had no interest in the New Year celebrations.

He was interested in the fact that there was a bottle of scotch waiting in his cupboard.

He was interested in the fact that one of his players dropped dead at the start of the year, and that the rest of his team was convinced the yakuza was involved, and that they were more likely to be right than they were to be wrong.

He was interested in the fact that one of his players was struggling through withdrawal in a psych ward coming off state prescribed medication that kept him high as a kite for two and a half years, and that it took him being raped by a foster brother—for apparently what wasn’t the first time—for it to happen.

He was interested in the fact that one of his players had a last-minute reroute of his Christmas plans to go spend time with the family he’d been desperately terrified of when they met, and that he ran off to catch the flight before most of the team had much of a chance to actually talk to him about it.

He was interested in the fact that if his team took another hit—if anyone **breathed** too aggressively around any of his kids—he was going to lose his goddamned mind.

The kids on his team were  **his** damn kids. They were his could-be sons and daughters. They were a little broken and a little messed up, a little rough around the edges—alright maybe more than a  **little** rough—but they were  **his** kids.

They lost Seth, and yeah, admittedly Seth was an asshole. But he’d been with Wymack five years. Seth was brackish and offensive and all-around a pretty shitty person, but he was still a Fox. Allison had loved him, and if Wymack knew Allison—and he did—it meant there was something about Seth worth loving.

And then Andrew. And Andrew was beyond the definitions of an asshole. He was, well there really weren’t any words for what Andrew was. The others called him Monster, they called him a sociopath and emotionless. But then… Wymack wasn’t stupid, he couldn’t believe that if he wanted to. Andrew was stupidly protective, ridiculously loyal. He was more Wymack’s son than Wymack cared to admit.

He was more  **Wymack** than Wymack cared to admit.

And Neil. Neil was a puzzle Wymack still hadn’t figured out. He was a scared runaway boy desperate to get away from his family. He reacted and snapped and bit anything at any opportunity. He walked into Fox Tower with skittish mannerisms and a sceptical gaze and won over each and every player and staff member on the team.

Wymack wasn’t there for any of it. He didn’t see what happened to Seth. He couldn’t stop what happened to Andrew. He didn’t even know Neil’s plans had changed before the plane had taken off.

He had a bad feeling about it. And the two weeks of radio silence since had been nothing if not unnerving. 

He was pouring a glass of scotch, ice cubes misshapen and clinking around in the mug. There was nothing for him to celebrate, but he could inebriate himself into next week to  **forget** . 

Wymack started at the sharp knock at the door, ice clacking together in a swell of scotch.

He paused, delaying long enough to drain the cup before heading over. He wasn’t expecting anyone, Abby was busy, all his kids had flown away for the break. 

He certainly wasn’t expecting what was waiting for him.

Neil was there, all his weight carried by the Raven backliner Jean Moreau.

Neil looked up at him, pale blue eyes and bright auburn hair. And that was definitely Neil there staring at him, but it wasn’t Neil at all.

Wymack didn’t know a damn thing about what was going on, but it was  **not** how he was expecting his New Year's Eve to go.

“What the fuck is this?” Wymack looked between them again, Neil wrapped up like a mummy and Moreau sporting his fair share of purple and red.

Moreau looked sick, skin pale and flushed and a sweat worked up around his temples. He shuffled under Wymack’s heavy gaze, the arm under Neil’s shoulders lifting the vanished striker up a little more. A puff of air left Neil’s chest, a soft little ‘oof’ sound giving away the pain he was in, and still, he pulled the traces of a smile onto his face.

“I-” Moreau cleared his throat and swallowed. “I was hoping he’d be in better shape, both of us, but Riko… I did my best.”

Wymack waited for more as if he’d get his answers by standing there and staring at them for long enough.

“Christ,” Wymack muttered, a hand rubbing across half his face. “Get him in here.”

It was enough of an invitation for Moreau apparently, the backliner carefully manoeuvring through the doorway. He was careful in a way Wymack hadn’t seen coming, his movements carried out with a sort of caution and softness a six-foot two Raven backliner shouldn’t be able to have. He did his best not to jostle Josten anymore than he absolutely had to, but looking at the mess the striker was, it didn’t take much to make him wince.

Moreau got to the couch quickly and he sunk down with Neil. 

Another event on the never-ending list of things Wymack didn’t see coming was the way Josten held onto Moreau when he tried to pull back and give him space.

“Jean,” Neil mumbled. 

Moreau clicked his tongue twice, a slow shake of his head a picture perfect copy of a parent disciplining their child. “ _ Lâchez prise, vous avez besoin d'espace, vous vous blesserez seulement en essayant de vous accrocher _ .”

Wymack pretended he understood a single word of that. He closed the door behind him, forgoing another glass of scotch for digging up as many truths as he could as quickly as he could.

He sat on the table, pushing it back to give the two players on his couch a wide berth. “Neil, talk to me, what’s going on here. Matt said your plans changed and you were heading home, now I’ve got a Raven on my couch and you look like you’ve been run over by a truck.”

Neil looked up at Wymack, distracted enough to let Moreau give him back the arm curled over his shoulders. Neil winced as Moreau pushed his shoulder down and his arm back into his own side. “I’m sorry, Coach,” he muttered.

“For what, kid?” Wymack shifted. “You’ve got to give me something to work with here.”

Neil waved loosely at Moreau with the arm now liberated from around Moreau’s shoulders. “ _ Jean, montre-lui le contrat, dis-lui… _ ” 

Wymack didn’t know a lick of French, but he knew enough to wait. Moreau shifted to pull a thin stack of papers from a pocket in his coat, handing them to Wymack. Wymack watched as Moreau moved, the stiff set of the backliner’s shoulder, the flicker of a grimace as he stretched forward to pass them off, the thin traces of sorrow in his eyes as the papers exchanged hands.

Wymack didn’t like this at all. Not the clear signs of abuse on both of the kids on his couch, not the way they both looked at those pages like they’d kill all three of them.

Wymack looked down, and he was looking at a contract with the Edgar Allan Ravens.

He pulled his gaze back up slowly. Neil was picking at a bandage on his face, fingers pulling at the edges of the tape. Wymack’s hand reached to knock Neil’s away from it, but Moreau got there first, batting Neil almost gently. 

“Stop it you devil,” Moreau mumbled. “ _ Vous les aggraverez. _ ”

Wymack watched long enough to catch the eye roll Neil directed back at Moreau before looking back at the papers in his hands. “Neil…”

Neil was looking up at him now, his hands threaded together in his lap to keep from scratching at something that was clearly bothering him. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Wymack argued. “You’re still a Fox, Josten, this is-” Wymack broke off, glancing over to Moreau. He didn’t trust the backliner. Moreau was a Raven, that was all Wymack knew, and it was a rule of his that Ravens weren’t the most trustworthy of people. “This means nothing okay? We can figure this out.”

Neil dropped his head into his hands, fingers pushing at the corners of his eyes. “Look, I  **signed** _ ,  _ Coach. It’s too late to ‘figure this out’ I-” Neil’s hands fell back into his lap, and he turned to Moreau. “ _ Pouvez-vous nous donner un moment? Il ne répondra pas si librement pendant que vous êtes ici. Il y a une trousse de premiers soins dans la salle de bain _ .”

Moreau hesitated, looking between Neil and Wymack before nodding slightly and standing. He wandered away, not far enough he couldn’t be back in a half-second if he needed to intervene. Wymack just wasn’t sure whose side Moreau was on. Was he lingering for moral support, or to relay their conversation back to Riko.

Neil watched him go. “Andrew comes back on Tuesday right? They called you?”

Wymack was nodding before he could stop himself. What did Andrew have to do with a Ravens contract and two abused kids? “What’s Andrew got to do with this?”

Neil laughed bitterly. “Everything that matters.”

Moreau was back, settling onto the couch with a first aid kit on his lap. Wymack hadn’t noticed when Moreau’s wandering left the kitchen for the bathroom instead. 

“Neil,” Wymack repeated. “What happened? I need you to explain this to me.” Moreau tugged on the sleeve of Neil’s sweater lightly, but Neil held his arm out almost immediately. Wymack’s hand closed around Neil’s wrist in a flash and he didn’t miss the way Neil flinched. “Moreau, don’t you touch him.”

Moreau bristled, looking ready to tackle Wymack and toss him out the window of his own home. Another addition to Wymack’s list of unexpected events. None of this was making sense to him and he still wasn’t getting any answers.

“ _ Jean, _ ” Neil murmured. _ “Détends-toi. Il est juste inquiet, pour lui tu n'es qu'un autre Corbeau, il ne sait pas mieux. _ ”

Wymack wasn’t sure about what was going down between them, but Moreau softened. He kept on glaring at Wymack, but the hostility leached out of him.

Moreau’s lip curled, a sneer to rival Riko’s falling into place. “ _ Il a des préjugés. _ ”

Neil laughed lightly, a soft huff before he pinched the skin on the back of Moreau’s hand. “Okay, Grumpy.”

Moreau scowled at Neil, but it wasn’t angry. It was almost…Wymack would say it was almost fond. He’d seen enough traumatized kids to recognize it. None of them could emote all that well, not that Wymack was an exception to the rule. It was the same way he looked at his players, the way he scowled and threatened them but cared more than he could rationally fathom underneath it.

“Jean’s okay, Coach,” Neil promised, and when Moreau reached to roll up the sleeve of Neil’s sweater again Wymack let him. “It’s hard to get good painkillers in the Nest, he’s just playing nurse.”

Moreau’s scowl deepened, and Wymack wished not for the first time that night that he knew at least a little bit of French. “ _ Je ne suis pas infirmière. _ ”

But Neil only smiled at him, “Sure, Jean.”

“Josten…” Wymack grumbled.

“ _ À propos du reste de votre équipe _ .”

Neil started at Moreau’s words but he nodded and turned back to Wymack. “Right, the others… they don’t need to know about all this.” He gestured loosely at himself, not so subtly bringing the attention back to the bandages and the gash along his forearm that Moreau was gently dabbing antiseptic cream on. “They’ll find out about the contract one way of the other, but they don’t-”

“Bullshit,” Wymack interrupted. “You’re staying here, Josten.”

Neil winced, but Wymack couldn’t tell if it was his words or the pressure Moreau was applying to that cut as he bandaged it up again. “We’ve got a flight back in four hours. Look, Coach, I know I owe you the truth-”

“Damn right you do.”

Except Wymack didn’t care much for the truth right now. He cared about the fact that Neil Josten, who was supposed to be staying with his family, ended up in the Nest, and consequently ended up on his couch beat to shit and offering a signed Ravens contract and an apology.

Neil flinched back anyways, and Moreau shifted forwards like it was instinct, natural, putting himself between Neil and Wymack the way a backliner puts himself between a striker and the goal.

**Oh** , Wymack realized,  **partners** _. _

He’d heard about the Nest’s partners from Kevin, he knew the general way they worked. They slept in the same room, ate at the same table, they spent every second of the day together joined at the hip. If things went wrong they both took flack, if things went right… from what Wymack knew things going right didn’t do much other than not go bad.

“I just, this is how it has to happen,” Neil pressed. “Ask Kevin when he gets back, he’ll tell you, I just-”

Wymack cut in, he had no patience for Josten’s excuses and no patience to sit and wait for Kevin to come back to hear the truth. “I’ll have it from you, Josten.”

“Coach-”

“It’s a stack of papers, Josten,” Wymack argued. “We’ll take it to the ERC.”

Moreau scoffed, fingers pulling at the collar of Neil’s shoulder to peak at yet another bandage. “ _ Votre coach est un homme stupide, l'ERC ne fera rien, pas si cela signifie se tenir contre le maître. _ ”

“English, Moreau.”

Moreau had the gall to look annoyed with him.

“You are not a match for the Moriyama’s,” Moreau barked. “Wymack, it’s beyond you now.”

“We managed fine with Kevin,” Wymack argued.

Moreau scoffed again. “Day was different.”

Wymack leaned forward, pressing his fingers together. “Yeah? And how is that?”

Moreau’s posture changed in a breath, his body rigid and tense, ready to strike or… Wymack blinked slowly, Moreau wasn’t ready to strike, he was ready to  **be** struck.

Moreau’s eyes were cold and furious, but his body—

Wymack thought he might understand the Nest and the Moriyama’s a little better now, and he wasn’t exactly sure he was all that much of a fan of what he was seeing.

“ **How** it is,” Moreau snapped. “Is of no importance to you, what’s important is that it **is** .” 

Neil’s hand brushed against Moreau’s elbow, his fingers soft as a ghost’s breath. Wymack didn’t understand this blood forged friendship, the depths and intimacies of the Nest’s partnership. But Wymack remembered exactly how hard it was for Kevin. He’d been incapable of going anywhere or doing anything on his own. Wymack didn’t know how deep the Ravens’ partner rule ran, and he didn’t want to. 

Moreau forged on, rage curling in his voice. “Neil will return with me to the Nest because there is no other option, he will play with the Ravens because it is where he belongs. You can tell your team  **that** .”

Moreau stood, a blister pack of painkillers and a wad of gauze in one hand, a roll of medical tape looped around his wrist—his too thin wrist.

What the hell were they doing to these kids?

Neil struggled to his feet beside him, feather-light touch on Moreau’s arm again. The tension in Moreau was clear, but he slipped an arm under Neil’s shoulders immediately to support him.

“I’m sorry Coach,” Neil said. “But Jean’s right. I have to go back.” He paused, looking down at the laces of his shoes before lifting his eyes back to Wymack. “Look could you just, the others I don’t-”

Wymack knew, he could see the resignation and the rage in Neil’s eyes, he knew exactly what Neil was trying to say.

“Josten, if you’re being coerced-”

It wasn’t an if. Wymack wasn’t stupid enough to think any of this happened willingly.

Neil held up a single hand. It shouldn’t have meant anything, but Wymack stopped. He’d spent enough time around Andrew to know how to respect boundaries. And he knew.

“Kevin will explain if you ask,” Neil insisted. He swayed on his feet for a second and Moreau adjusted his grip, pulling Neil’s side flat against his own. “It just, it was always supposed to be this way. You’ll understand when Kevin explains.”

There’s nothing Wymack could do, nothing he could say. He hated that they were right; that he had to sit there and let Josten walk away; that he’ll have to tell the team that Josten’s been snatched up right from underneath them; that he’d been forced and beaten and coerced into staying longer, into  **signing.**

They were walking away now, Moreau’s arm carefully placed around the middle of Neil’s back. Neil put more of his weight on Moreau than he should have to.

“Hey,” Wymack called. They both turned back to him, twin expressions on their faces. “You take care of him, Moreau, I want him back when this is over.”

Neil looked more fragile now than he ever had. Beside him Moreau straightened and strengthened, nodded once, and Wymack watched them walk out. He watched the door close behind them and couldn’t do a damn thing.

He looked back at the papers still in his hand, the signed contract.

**Nathaniel Wesninksi.**

Who the fuck was Nathaniel? And what the hell were they getting themselves into?

Wymack threw the pages down. He didn't bother with a glass this time, ignoring the mug with half-melted ice cubes waiting on the counter. Wymack stood at his counter, one hand tight around the edge the other lifting the scotch straight to his lips.

Happy Fucking New Year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kevin and Wymack! Ah!
> 
> The Kevin scene! Kevin is a wreck, idk what to say really. he's really struggling with the understanding that Neil is Nathaniel and that Neil is in the Nest, coupled with the fact that he's more or less on his own for the first time (no Neil or Andrew to help him) he's borderline drowning in his anxiety.
> 
> Jen had the idea for Riko sending Kevin updates, and we kind of ran with it, lol don't hate us. It just makes sense to us that Riko would love to inflict that sort of psychological torture on Kevin, especially knowing that his defences are weakened without Andrew and Neil.
> 
> As for the Wymack scene... Jen and I felt it was really important to look at the New Year's Eve scene from someone else's POV and having it be from Wymack just made the most sense. It allowed us to look at his dynamic with the team (even though they're absent in the chapter) and try to understand how he would feel and react to everything going on. 
> 
> We really feel like he sees the team as his kids in a way (all though maybe a little reluctantly) and knowing he can't do anything to help them a lot of the time has to be weighing on him more than it shows in Neil's POV in canon.
> 
> Basically, this chapter was just a bunch of angst (although that's kind of what the whole is, ngl)
> 
> Fair warning next chapter is still no Neil (but we get another new POV, one guess who it is...)
> 
> Anywhooooo
> 
> Next Time:
> 
> “David?”
> 
> He looked up from the Edgar Allan paperwork to find Abby standing in the doorway. He hadn’t noticed her there. How long had she been there watching him stare down a stack of papers like it would change anything?
> 
> He never should have let Josten walk out of his apartment, signed contract or not. He should have kept him and Moreau both looked up until Abby could come to treat them and locked up longer still.
> 
> What was happening to the two of them now? What other kinds of torture did Riko shit face Moriyama have planned for those boys?
> 
> Wymack didn’t want to know; he wasn’t sure he could live with the knowledge.


	5. Can't Go To Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew gets back from Easthaven and the Foxes have a team meeting from Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there you lovely people!
> 
> This chapter is once again told from outside of Neil's perspective, but I promise we'll get back to our favourite snarky striker soon enough!
> 
> Content warnings: mentions of abuse both physical and sexual (referencing Andrew's stay in Easthaven and Neil's less than ideal condition during the New Years visit), a lot of emotional turmoil, angst, mostly just Andrew struggling with his feelings and then Wymack struggling with his.
> 
> Enjoy!  
>  \- Mac and Jen <3

~Andrew~

Neil Josten was a pipe dream.

Andrew knew that. He met a scared runaway little rabbit that burrowed past the manic craze of the drugs and stirred up  **feelings** and  **emotions** better left dead and buried. Neil Josten was a far off hallucination, the  **feelings** he dug up were insignificant. It was all wrapped up in the side effects of the mania. 

Andrew spent seven weeks in a pretty prison, seven weeks vomiting and shaking and slowly and painfully coming back to himself in a haunted house;  **he** was a haunted house. He was scrubbed raw and hollow. There was nothing left. He spent seven weeks staring at god awful off-white walls, and now he was nothing but. He was empty walls and deserted hallways, a cheap cot and a pillow infested with mildew.

But he was clean now, no manic infestation rotting his brain, no happy pills stuffing him full of bullshit reactions to bullshit hallucinations.

He was clean but he was blank. 

Not empty canvas blank, that insinuated a future, hinted at bright colours and abstractions and pretty hopeful things. Andrew was blank like an abandoned building, sheets thrown over left behind furniture and windows boarded up to keep the light out. He was blank like the bottom of an empty swimming pool, happy face spray-painted on and rust drip-dropping down the drains. He was used up, washed out, and everything left behind in the ruins of something that  **might have been** .

Andrew didn’t— **couldn’t** —feel. It wasn’t a safe thing for people like him. He’d spent so much of his childhood learning how not to, spent so long caught up in a haze of euphoric drugs, that now Andrew was ‘better’, now that he had the chance to feel again; he  **couldn’t** . 

Feeling wasn’t a part of him any more, it hadn’t ever really been his. His chest was a hollowed-out swelling of aching nothing where the pills used to be. That was real, and Andrew knew that.

Neil Josten, the flash of a crooked smirk, the press of Andrew’s hand on ragged skin, the sharpness of icicles in blue eyes, ice melting in the heat of the sun. None of that was real. And whatever that twisting sting was, whatever that bitter twinge of  **something** in his chest was, it wasn’t real either.

There was nothing real about Neil Josten or what he did to Andrew; what he made Andrew  **feel.**

Andrew knew that.

And still, when he followed the Psychiatrist through those swinging doors at the end of the hallway he’d been staring at for seven weeks and saw three bodies instead of four, something in him gave out. 

Like he’d been  **hoping** for better.

But Andrew Minyard  **didn’t** hope. He didn’t  **care** . There wasn’t a point in any of it. No point in caring. Not about Neil Josten, not about the fact that a certain rabbit hadn’t shown up for his release, not about anything. 

So what did it matter to him if Neil Josten was real? What did it matter to him if any of it had been real? 

Neil Josten was an impossible thing Andrew was never allowed to have.

He didn’t  **want** him anyway.

Andrew didn’t  **want** anything.

**Denial,** he thought.  **Step one of five, Bee would be spinning in her seat.**

Because that wasn’t it either was it? Andrew did want. Andrew wanted hot chocolate and cigarette smoke on the rooftop. He wanted the swell and crash of bubbling fear at his centre of gravity, he wanted the hum and buzz of Neil’s gaze on the side of him. He wanted sunrises and sunsets and fast cars with the windows down and the smell of salt water and summer chasing away the hollow ache eating him alive.

But it was dangerous to want things. Dangerous for someone like Andrew to want something like…  **good.**

Nicky shot forward, arms out like he was ready to hug Andrew. He  **was** going to hug Andrew. “Andrew! Hey-” 

Andrew sidestepped, moving clear past him and passing the signed papers back to the Psychiatrist—Slosky. He didn’t pause, didn’t falter, he ignored his waiting party after a half-second evaluation and made for the last set of doors between him and the real world.

He made for the dumpster, conscious of the bodies trailing after him. Two peeled off, heading for wherever in the parking lot the GS was, but one…

Andrew dumped out the bag, each item of clothing tumbling over the others to land at the bottom of the dumpster bin. 

Bee had bought them for him seven weeks ago, if it was only her memory attached to them Andrew might have kept them, they weren’t altogether terrible, but there’d been other hands on them; hands Andrew hadn’t wanted, hands that had crept closer and closer to  **wrong** , and  **sick** , hands he’d very firmly said no to. Five weeks of hands Andrew wanted gone, and then they were, two final weeks of absence.

If only his pipe dream was here.

**No** . That  **was not** a thought Andrew would let himself have. That was a door staying very  **firmly** shut and locked and the key was somewhere in the Atlantic and he  **would not** go there. Neil Josten was a hallucination, he wasn’t real and the  **feelings** weren’t real. Andrew was a boarded-up house and a lonely ghost. 

And that was **fine.**

He turned and there was Kevin, standing by the door. Stupidly loyal Kevin. Andrew didn’t stop on his way past him, his eyes focused on the state of his car and his car only. He only stopped to hold out his hand for his keys. Nicky coughed up Neil’s copy and Andrew blinked at them once, a half-second falter—and they  **were** Neil’s keys, why did  **Nicky** have Neil’s keys?—before climbing into the car.

They were on edge, it was obvious enough in the bouncing of Nicky’s knee and the way Kevin leaned away from him subtly. 

He didn’t care.

It’s been too long since Andrew last drove. He had to adjust the seat, Nicky’s legs obviously much longer than Andrew’s. But then they were pulling out and driving—speeding—down the highway.

Driving was good; safe. Andrew could sit for hours behind the wheel of his car thinking. With a cigarette and an open road, Andrew thought he might reach something near contentment. 

He closed his eyes and for a second felt the sun on his skin and wind whipping through the cracked window. This, Andrew could live in this. Driving for hours in the afternoon sun, radio humming softly, smoke filtering through the air, Neil in the passenger seat with those stupid blue eyes.

His eyes snapped open, pulling the car back into the lane they’d drifted from.

Stupid Neil Josten with those stupid eyes. He was impossible, and Andrew needed to find a way to get rid of him.

He drove, foot a little heavier on the gas now, searching for that imagined contentment. It was just out of his reach, a mile ahead of him. Just a little faster, a little more gas and he could get there. He could do without the company, but if they kept their mouths shut and their anxiety to a minimum he could tune them out well enough.

None of them would look at him, all silent enough Andrew knew something  **more** than serious was going on. He drove, ignoring how painfully obvious they all made their evasion of him.

**Joyless and destructive.**

That’s what Nicky had said, wasn’t it? That’s what they were all expecting now that he was back. Andrew couldn’t do much to prove them wrong. He wasn’t joyless; he was an emotionless void. His brain was effectively fried. Two and a half years of manic inducing drugs did that to a person. Bee said it’d all come back eventually, that it would ‘take some time’ but he’d be feeling things again soon enough.

Andrew felt like he’d been singed, all loose nerve endings and sensitivities.

He didn’t  **want** to feel.

He wanted to get back to the Tower, drop into his bunk and sleep this whole thing off. He wanted all seven weeks of it wiped from his mind, he wanted his sores bandaged up by hot chocolate and a fuzzy blanket and he wanted to be left the hell alone. He wouldn’t even mind if Josten bothered him by hovering around and prodding for truths.

**Fuck**. What he **wanted** was for Neil **fucking** Josten to stop being the first thing his mind jumped to at every opportunity.

They were two minutes from Fox Tower—two minutes from his hot chocolate stash and his bed—when Nicky broke the silence.

“So uh, Coach said he wanted us to meet him at the court.”

Andrew didn’t so much as blink, set on his bed and a book and  **at least** nine marshmallows. 

“Andrew?” Nicky pressed. He leaned forwards, head peeking out between the seats. “He said it was important.”

No. Andrew had no desire to go to the court, he had no desire to talk to Wymack. If Wymack had something so terribly important to say he could damn well come to Andrew. Andrew had no desire to cater to anyone. He had a very strong desire to be left alone though, to sit up on the roof and smoke with-

**God damn Neil fucking Josten.**

Andrew wanted to be alone and he wanted to turn his brain  **off** . They were coming up on the turn for the parking lot, so very close to isolation. Maybe he’d round it out to a nice even ten marshmallows. Seven weeks at Easthaven… Andrew deserved ten marshmallows, and even if he didn’t it wasn’t like anyone would try to stop him. No, not off his meds and unpredictable as a ready-to-burst live volcano.

“It’s about Neil,” Kevin muttered.

Andrew’s grip on the wheel tightened, nothing noticeable enough for his companions to detect. He passed the turn for the parking lot. If something happened to Neil—

Andrew didn’t  **care** . He didn’t care about idiot Junkie rabbits. It wasn’t Andrew’s fault if the stupid fool got himself into trouble. 

But wasn’t it? Hadn’t he made him a promise? Josten had to keep Kevin here and Andrew would keep him safe. Where was that protection now? He’d been so worried about someone watching Kevin when he was shipped off to Easthaven, he never stopped to think about who would keep Neil safe too.

**Guilt** **_._ **

No, Andrew didn’t  **feel** things like guilt. He didn’t feel at all. This was all ridiculous.

So what did the rabbit do? Did he run? Andrew’s chest itched, scratching up and down the insides of his lungs. Kevin was here beside him and there was no Neil Josten, so a broken promise then? No, that was too simple. Neil Josten was a rabbit, but he hadn’t broken a single promise he’d made since he got here. Something bigger than a lie then.

Bigger, bigger, big.

Andrew wanted to know. That was the worst bit of it all because Andrew Minyard **didn’t want things.** He wasn’t supposed to want anything. Not like this was wanting. Not like Kevin **wanted** to play Exy, or like Aaron **wanted** his medical degree, or Nicky **wanted** a family. Andrew didn’t **want** things like that. Not Neil Josten, not anything. 

Wanting things was stupid and reckless and all it ever did was end up with Andrew getting hurt.

But Neil Josten was a math problem. He was unknowns and variables that were shifting and moving around faster than Andrew could solve them. He was a blend of truth and lies and Andrew wasn’t always sure he could tell one apart from the other. Andrew  **wanted** to solve the problem of Neil Josten. 

And he didn't hate that as much as he should.

Bee would call it progress. Andrew called it stupid.

He paused when they got out of the car, leaning against the closed door with his eyes locked on Kevin. Nicky and Aaron were too quick to rush inside, neither one sparing them so much as a glance.

“Talk,” Andrew grumbled, lighting his first cigarette in seven weeks. The smoke curled around him like a cat, he breathed it in slowly, but it tasted wrong, there was no rabbit propped beside him and it was  **wrong.**

The sound Kevin made was unique—Andrew would call it distressed sound number twenty-seven. It was almost as grotesque as distressed sound number thirteen.

“I uh,” Kevin swallowed, skin far too pale for innocence. “Wymack said to meet, we should-” He hooked a thumb over his finger, eyes wildly desperate.

Andrew pushed off the car, blowing smoke out and right up into Kevin’s face. “I don’t like surprises.”

And there was distressed sound number nine, a whimper-whine hybrid that made Andrew’s ears  **bleed.** “Neil is, he’s, well he’s not **here** , I really think we should-”

“Where is he.”

Kevin took a step back, “We should, inside, Wymack really wanted to tell everyone together.”

“I don’t like repeating myself, Day.” It was more than a fact, it was a threat. Kevin would tell Andrew now, or he’d tell him against a wall with his forehead bruised and bleeding.

“He just-” Kevin took another small stumbling step backwards. “Riko just, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, there was nothing we could do, I-”

Kevin stopped dead, his eyes widening. It took Andrew a second to realize why. His cigarette was crushed to nothing in his fist, his palm screaming with fresh burns. His body was stiff, rigid and deadly and Andrew wanted to know—he knew, oh he knew he knew he knew, and he wished he didn’t know—what his little rabbit was doing in a Nest of Ravens. 

Why did Neil Josten go running right into trouble when he’d built a life and personality dependent on running away? 

His hands coiled tighter into fists, the burning of his cigarette the last of his concerns. He wanted Riko Moriyama dead, and he wanted to be the one to do it. For now he’d settle for strangling Kevin Day.

“Where is Josten, Day?” he repeated, and he hated the inflection turning the end of the sentence up into a question.

Andrew took a daunting step forward, and the only thing that kept Kevin alive and well was Nicky’s impeccable timing. His head poked out through the door and he offered up something close to a smile.

“Wymack’s waiting guys.”

Kevin jumped on the escape route, scurrying over with his tail tucked and his head ducked. Andrew followed, not that he had any choice in the matter. He wanted answers—he wanted nothing, but answers would be nice. 

What he knew was this: Neil Josten was not a hallucination, Neil Josten was not here, and someone—though it remained to be seen who that someone was—had broken a promise.

Aaron and Nicky were on the couch when Andrew walked in, Kevin settling onto a chair behind Wymack.

Andrew wasn’t going to like what was coming.

“Minyard,” Wymack greeted. “How you feeling?”

Andrew wasn’t feeling anything, that was the source of pretty well all of his problems wasn’t it? Either he felt nothing at all, or what he did feel he didn’t feel ‘right’.

He fixed his glare on Wymack, heavy-lidded and dull. Andrew was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. He knew what he looked like, bored and halfway to sleep. His chest was hollowed out, that awful scratching stripping him bare and leaving screaming hot gauges behind.

Andrew  **hated** it.

Even more, Andrew hated that he knew exactly what he needed to soothe those sores.

“Andrew come sit,” Nicky insisted. “Just relax for a second would you?”

Andrew didn’t take his eyes off Wymack, and he certainly didn’t sit.

Wymack nodded sharply, and Andrew saw everything he needed right there on his face. None of them trusted Andrew off his meds. None of them knew what to make of him now. He was an unknown, a threat they couldn’t classify beyond dangerous. Nicky called him joyless and destructive. Aaron watched him with his guard shining in his eyes. They were scared of him, on edge and waiting for the big blow-up that was sure to come.

**Would Neil be scared?**

Andrew almost smacked himself to shake the thought away, but all that happened was the pointer finger of his right hand twitched and tapped a two-four count on his left wrist bone.

“Right,” Wymack muttered. “You’ll hear all this again tomorrow, but-” His eyes on Andrew were wary. “I thought you’d appreciate a bit of a heads up.”

Andrew saw himself with his old manic grin, drugged out of his mind and outside of his own control. He would’ve laughed an ‘oh Coach, that’s so sweet of you’. Instead, Andrew’s face stayed set in boredom, eyes focused but unworried. He was the perfect picture of apathy. 

“Get to it or I’m leaving.” It was almost a warning, one he wouldn’t follow through on if he could help it, but one Wymack respected all the same.

Wymack nodded. “Neil’s at Evermore.”

In another life, Andrew would have laughed. In this one, he didn’t even move.

Nicky did, eyes bulging and distressed sound number seven tumbling out. Even Aaron had the good sense to blink dumbly at Wymack. But Kevin, now Kevin was interesting. He looked just as sick as he had in the car, just as terrified as he had cornered outside. Kevin had been telling him outside before Nicky butted in, but to be that unresponsive… Kevin had known the whole time Neil had been gone exactly where Neil was.

Andrew was angry. 

It was the first thing he well and truly felt, fighting its way out of the numbed ocean of nothing he was soaking in. His chest was a vice, wrapped around his lungs and squeezing until they burned, his rage was a beast inside him clawing desperately to get out. Even with his arms crossed his hands shook, so he hid them deftly in his pockets. But his expression was schooled into blankness, just as bored and apathetic as if he’d been told it was raining. 

If anyone saw the twitch in his jaw they didn’t say anything.

Andrew was screaming and he hated it. Hated the way that Neil Rabbit Josten was the one thing making him feel in all of this emptiness.

He would burn the Nest down, he would tear Riko fucking Moriyama apart limb by limb and drag his—no, not his—rabbit out of there by the skin on the back of his neck just so he could kill him himself.

**Anger.**

“Is that all?”

The entire room snapped to him. Disbelief and shock registering in varying degrees on all of them. Andrew didn’t care. He didn’t care.

Why did it sound so much like he was convincing himself of it?

“Andrew,” Nicky started. “Neil is in  **Evermore.** You heard Coach, right? Evermore, with Riko?”

Kevin flinched.

Oh, Kevin, Kevin who knew the entire time and did nothing to stop it. So much for ‘it wasn’t anyone's fault’. Covering his own ass before he’d even told Andrew what was going on. Kevin Day, the man, the myth, the legend.

Andrew might kill Kevin first. He could take him out in a heartbeat once he got his knives back. His knives, which Josten had. Oh, Neil Josten, all the way in Evermore, would still be the death of him.

No matter, Andrew would kill Kevin, he’d drive himself down to West Virginia and kill Riko, he’d drag Josten’s ass all the way back to Palmetto just so he could kill him too.

Andrew was a bundle of frayed nerves and loose wires sparking and snapping and caught in a too-tight twisting fist. He ached.  **He ached.** He burned, throbbed, seized. He’d been punched and kicked and there was a screaming weight compressing his chest into nothing. 

He was never supposed to have this.

Neil was always supposed to be a pipe dream, and now he was gone.

Neil Josten was gone and it was making Andrew  **feel.**

He didn’t answer Nicky, didn't say anything at all to any of them. Let them figure out their bullshit themselves, let Neil Josten rot in Evermore, let Kevin get his ass dragged back there.

What did Andrew care anyway?

He turned, walked out, ignored Nicky shouting after him and Aaron telling Nicky not to bother. He got in his car—a car Neil Josten had been sitting in seven weeks ago perfectly safe and far **far** away from Evermore—and drove away. 

They could all find their own damn way back to Fox Tower; Andrew needed a fucking break.

~Wymack~

For a long time, Wymack saw his office as a safe space. Kids could come in, say whatever they needed to say, and trust that unless it was absolutely crucial the others knew, nobody outside of those walls would ever know what transpired inside them.

So he sat in his office, Josten’s transfer papers on the desk before him, trying to hold onto that feeling of safety. He had the door closed, but even still he could hear the Foxes gathering in the lounge. For a second he could almost hear Dan asking if anyone had spoken to Neil all break.

He wanted to regret calling them here, for a second he did. He didn't want to do this, it was the sort of news he’d rather give at a funeral than their court. This was their home, and Wymack was about to turn their worlds upside down. He didn’t want to do this, not now, not tomorrow, not ever.

It might be easier if he just stayed in here. He could lock the door, sit on the floor behind the desk, pretend he wasn’t there until they all left. 

**Bargaining.**

It might have worked, only Dan had a key and she’d come looking here first.

“David?”

He looked up from the Edgar Allan paperwork to find Abby standing in the doorway. He hadn’t noticed her there. How long had she been there watching him stare down a stack of papers like it would change anything?

He never should have let Josten walk out of his apartment, signed contract or not. He should have kept him and Moreau both locked up until Abby could come to treat them and locked up longer still.

What was happening to the two of them now? What other kinds of torture did Riko shit face Moriyama have planned for those boys?

Wymack didn’t want to know; he wasn’t sure he could live with the knowledge.

“The kids are all here,” Abby muttered.

Wymack didn’t miss the ache in her voice;  **all except for one** went unspoken.

“Right,” Wymack nodded, cleared his throat, his fingers found the bottom corners of the contract and… and. “I just uh, I’ll get a few last things sorted and be right over.”

It was a weak excuse at best, an awful lie at worst, and Abby saw right through him. She didn’t move from her spot in the doorway, intent on waiting to leave with him. 

He fiddled around a little longer, playing pretend so his obvious lie was maybe a little less obvious. It didn’t do any good, he was no more willing to face those kids and tell them a part of their family had been snatched away, even less willing to tell them he was in bad shape.

Abby took a step into the space, letting the door come mostly closed behind her.

“David,” she mumbled, her hand coming down to rest on top of his. “He’ll be okay, you know he’s a survivor. We’ll have him back with us soon enough.”

Wymack felt himself deflate. He’d always done his best not to show all too much of how he felt, especially not when he was worried. The better he could keep his own walls up the better he could be for those kids in there. They needed an anchor, someone to keep them grounded, someone they could lean on when things got tough. 

Things were about to get tough, and he was in no condition to be the support his kids needed. One of his kids was missing—no, Wymack knew  **exactly** where he was, he was just helpless to reach him.

**Depression.**

And here was Abby trying to help him get his feet under him. She didn’t see him. She didn’t see either of them. She didn’t see the way that in two short weeks they’d been conditioned to lean on each other and each other alone, that they’d been conditioned to willingly take hits for each other. 

It made him vaguely nauseous, hit a little too close to home for too many of his Foxes. How was he supposed to tell them this?

“Let’s get it over with?” Abby offered.

There was nothing else he could do. There was no valid reasoning to stay hidden away other than the guilt twisting his gut. Wymack nodded, and letting the contract slip from his fingers, he followed Abby out to the lounge. 

They all looked to him immediately, all his kids turning to him confused and expectant. It was only Andrew, picking disinterestedly at a loose thread on the couch cushion he was perched on, who didn’t look to Wymack. 

Strangely enough, Wymack was something close to grateful for Andrew’s apathy. 

They’ve got more space on the couch now. It hurt Wymack to see it. Aaron’s still on the chair next to it and Nicky’s standing in behind instead of sitting. Kevin’s tucked tightly against one arm and Andrew’s up on his heels in the middle. Neil should be there too, propped up on the cushion on Andrew’s other side. Andrew’s group knows he’s gone, and still, they’ve left his spot free.

Wymack knows the upperclassmen saw it.

Dan shifted to see him better, her eyes a little too wide. “Coach, what’s going on?”

“We’ve been asking the Monsters about Neil but  **someone** -” Allison glared over at Andrew, still picking at the cushion. “Won’t let anyone talk.”

Wymack winced. He should have known better. There was no chance in hell Andrew would take this even remotely close to well. He saw them together before Andrew went to Easthaven. Andrew didn’t trust people. Andrew didn’t let people into his life. But there Andrew was, trusting Neil, letting Neil in, watching Neil, protecting Neil even before they’d come to a deal. 

Wymack wasn’t stupid. He stayed out of the Foxes' personal business, but that didn’t mean he didn’t see it. It had been almost painfully obvious to him that there was something more going on between the two of them, even if neither of them could admit it.

It wasn’t going to be fun trying to deal with Andrew until they got Neil back. And that was if they managed to get him back at all.

Wymack wasn’t ready for this conversation.

“Okay,” Wymack started, he leaned himself against the wall, a little support at his back.  **I’m gonna kill Josten for this.** “Some of you know that Neil went…  **away** , for Christmas break.”

There. That was a good start.

“His uncle came for a visit,” Matt supplied, a deep frown set on his face. “He flew home for the break instead of tagging along with us, he said he’d be back by New Years, but…” Matt trailed off, eyebrows knitting together. “What’s that got to do with anything? Are his parents forcing him to stay longer?”

Wymack tried not to sigh too aggressively as he looked over to Kevin. He wasn’t going down on this ship alone. Kevin’s eyes widened and he gave Wymack a look like he’d strangle him if the Coach didn’t strangle Kevin first. 

They held each other's stare a little longer, a little too long before Kevin conceded.

“He didn’t go home,” Kevin mumbled.

“What?” Dan asked. “Where else would he go?”

Matt jumped in with her, the two of them with hands clasped and hearts bleeding. “I dropped him off at the airport myself,” he explained. “He didn’t run away or anything did he?”

Kevin looked up at Wymack, pleading eyes finding Wymack unresponsive and isolating. “He went to Evermore,” Kevin continued. “To the Nest.”

Allison laughed, “He did what?”

Kevin was all dried up, there was nothing left in him to give. Even Andrew noticed, his fingers no longer picking at loose threads but frozen against the cushion and body tensed.

“Riko made a few threats,” Wymack said. He wasn’t a complete asshole, Kevin needed to own up to his knowledge of the choice, but Wymack wasn’t going to leave him out to dry. “Neil did what he thought was right and went to keep those threats from coming true. He was supposed to be back.” Wymack shrugged to hide the shiver of nausea running through him. “I don’t know a hundred percent what happened over the break, but he and Moreau dropped by my apartment with the paperwork and it wasn’t pretty. From what I can tell there were more threats involved and a hell of a lot of abuse. At the end of the day, Riko got a signature, it wasn’t willing, but he signed.”

The silence was painful. 

“Okay,” Dan said. “Okay. What do we need to do to get him back?”

The noise that left Kevin’s throat had everyone turning to him apart from Andrew. “We don’t  **get him back.** ”

“Well we aren’t doing nothing,” Matt argued.

Aaron scoffed from his spot on the chair, Wymack was glad he was out of Andrew’s reach. But then, had Andrew ever gotten his knives back? Or his bands?

“Why not?” Aaron countered. “He’s a lying runaway, let him stay there.”

It was Nicky making strangled noises now, Dan fixing Aaron with a raging glare.

“Hold on,” Allison demanded, she waited for the attention to swing over to her before she fixed hers on Wymack. “You said threats. What the hell type of threats got Neil to Evermore? He’s got no self-preservation skills at all, he wouldn’t have gone because Riko threatened him.”

That was what Wymack hadn’t wanted to discuss. Neil hadn’t come out and said it, but he’d asked about Andrew, said Andrew meant everything, had everything to do with him going to Evermore. Wymack wasn’t stupid.

He glanced over at Andrew, trying to judge his reaction and noticed Kevin looking at him too. It was obvious enough for Allison to clue in.

“Oh, you’re kidding me, the Monster? Neil handed himself over to Riko for the Monster?” She scoffed lightly, but the heat usually sitting behind those words was missing.

Nicky’s head fell forwards, “I’m gonna be sick.”

“Look it doesn’t matter  **why** he went,” Dan said. Her grip on Matt was tighter than it had been when they began. Wymack would have been worried if he didn’t know the two of them. “What matters is getting him back. If we can prove Neil was coerced into signing, then the contract is null, right?”

“We can’t take the Moriyama’s to court,” Kevin grumbled. “They’d just kill us all.”

Renee shuffled, speaking for the first time since Wymack had dropped his bomb on them all. “Well, isn’t that a little extreme, Kevin? I’d like to think that would be a bit too much of a stink in the press.”

Kevin glowered at her, but he shrunk back into himself enough to tell the team Renee wasn’t entirely wrong. “They’re the Moriyama’s, they’ll do what they want.”

This was getting off-topic and out of hand. Wymack clapped to bring them back to him. There was another less than fortunate conversation to have today. “Doesn’t matter,” Wymack started. “Neil is with the Ravens and for the time being there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Wait,” and of course it was Aaron who got there first. “If Josten is  **gone** _ , _ gone, we’re a player down. How are we supposed to play?”

Terrible conversation number two. 

Here goes nothing. “The ERC wasn’t flexible enough to let us play without Josten, but with some…  **undesired** assistance from Coach Moriyama, they gave Abby and I the go-ahead to recruit a freshman a little early.”

“Early?” Dan pressed.

“Kid’ll be staying with Abby and finishing the remainder of his high school courses online, but the ERC is letting him play.” Wymack huffed a sigh. “It’s not ideal, I think we all know that, but it’s the best we can do.”

Matt looked around the room as if expecting the kid to materialize from nothing. “Is he here?”

Wymack glanced briefly at Abby, but it was enough that she slipped out of the lounge and veered straight for the locker room.

“Be fucking nice would you?” Wymack demanded. “The kid’s scared enough as it is and the last thing we need is for him to run off.”

Finally, Andrew looked up from his cushion. Wymack wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to that bored stare waiting for him. “You brought us another rabbit?”

Wymack didn’t bother to answer, looking over to Abby as she brought the kid in. He wasn’t much, and quite honestly Wymack never would have recruited him if they weren’t absolutely desperate. He was a willing name on their roster and not much else. A placeholder until he could figure out a way to get Josten back.

The Foxes stared, Andrew at Wymack, the others at the kid. Not even Dan offered up a greeting for him. Wymack let it go on for a moment, let his Foxes get a read on the new guy.

“Flores,” he said, gesturing simply to the kid. “Meet the Foxes.”

That got Dan going.

“Dan Wilds,” she started, sticking a hand out and climbing to her feet. “Captain, it’s uh, nice to meet you, Flores.”

Flores hesitantly took her hand, shaking it slowly and looking halfway to bolting already. “Right,” he agreed. “I’m sure it is.”

Kevin dropped his head into his hands and groaned, an almost perfect image of exactly what Wymack wished he could do. This was sure to be a shit show if Wymack ever saw one.

Dan, bless her soul, was undeterred. It had to be the year and a half of dealing with Andrew, or the half-year of dealing with Neil. She was a strong girl. Wymack had no doubt she’d get through to Flores eventually. “That’s Allison, Matt, over there that’s Renee, Aaron in the chair there, Nicky behind the couch, and Andrew and Kevin on it.” She pointed at each player as she spoke, there wasn’t any point in giving much more information, if Flores didn’t already know he’d figure it out. “You’ve already met Coach and Abby, and then Betsy Dobson is the team's psychologist, you’ll meet her soon.”

Dan’s job was done.

Wymack waited, the Foxes waited. It felt like the whole world waited for Flores to make his move.

He nodded slowly and retreated back from Dan. But his eyes were on Andrew, who’d gone back to picking at the cushion meticulously. “You don’t actually carry knives do you?”

“Christ,” Wymack breathed.

Andrew looked up, bored as Wymack had ever seen him and didn’t say anything, just pulled a knife out of each armband and twirled them tauntingly. Wymack didn’t even care how Andrew had gotten them back seeing as Neil wasn’t here to hand them over. 

It was the least of his concerns when Flores flinched backwards.

“Damnit, Minyard,” Wymack scolded. “Don’t scare the kid, that’s all I asked.”

Andrew slid his gaze over to Wymack, but he kept the knives out and on display. “Oops,” he muttered. “Sorry, Coach.” 

“I’m sure. If no one has got anything to add?” Wymack paused long enough for someone to say something. Waited, waited. Nothing. “Wonderful,” he grumbled. “Get the hell out.”

He turned and headed back for his office, relatively unconcerned.

“So Neil’s really not coming back then?” Matt asked.

Wymack paused, but the question wasn’t for him. He turned halfway into his office to see Matt looking at Kevin.

“Riko’s not letting him go, is he?”

Kevin shook his head slowly. There was no immediate sound of distress, but the resignation was written as clear as anything on Kevin’s expression. Resignation and grief. “No, I don’t think he will.”

Dan slid her hand back into Matt’s and squeezed, trying on a brave smile. “We’ll get him back,” she insisted. She turned to Andrew, opting to aim her words at him and not the others. A cry for help. “Andrew’ll figure something out.”

The Foxes turned to Andrew, but Andrew didn’t deign to acknowledge any of them. Wymack wasn’t expecting him to, but with their hope handed willingly over to him, Wymack was hoping for something. 

Andrew stuffed his knives away and stood. He was almost out the door before he stopped and looked over at Renee. “Coming?”

Wymack felt his heart sinking.

Renee smiled smoothly, her face a perfect mask of pleasantry. “Of course,” she breathed, sliding off her perch and following Andrew out.

Allison’s jaw hardened despite the slump in her shoulders. “It’s fine,” she decided, and she spoke so fiercely even Wymack wanted to believe her. “We’ll figure it out.” She slung an arm over Dan’s shoulders and Wymack watched as Nicky moved forward to join in with the upperclassmen.

Dan nodded slowly, her own confidence building itself back up brick by brick. “Yeah,” she agreed. 

If anything, his Foxes were resilient. Wymack prayed they could get through this.

“Why do you care anyway?” Flores asked. Wymack wasn’t sure if it was genuine curiosity or pure jackass attitude, but it didn’t bode well either way. “He left you.”

Kevin’s head snapped up in an instant. “Keep your mouth shut,” Kevin snapped. “You don’t know a damn thing.”

Of all his Foxes, Wymack hadn’t seen Kevin coming to Neil’s defense. Dan, Matt, Nicky, Allison. Any of them. Even Renee and Andrew would take the bait if it came to it. Aaron maybe not, but Kevin… 

Wymack had watched Kevin struggle to put himself back together for a year. He wasn’t expecting Kevin to jump in for Neil; to risk himself for Neil Josten of all people. Kevin barely defended himself.

But then…

Kevin had been watching Neil the whole time, how he stood toe to toe with the worst of them and held his chin high. Kevin wasn’t there yet, and Wymack had thought watching Josten cave to the Moriyama’s would set him back…

Maybe Kevin knew something Wymack didn’t. And watching Kevin spit hellfire at the new kid in defense of Neil Josten, well, Wymack would be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little proud.

Flores flinched backwards, but not even Abby defended him to Kevin’s rage.

Wymack waited for another second, but the Foxes were clearing out now. If there was any way he was going to get Josten back, Wymack had work to do.

**Acceptance.**

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ......
> 
> sorry? I know there was a whack of emotional distress in this chapter and honestly, I can't say that the next chapter is much better (it is a little better though I think)
> 
> Andrew is struggling very much with the concept of feelings and wanting things in this chapter. It'll get easier for him the longer he has to deal with it, but we both figured he'd be totally overwhelmed by it all after so long not being able to feel anything.
> 
> and then the FOXES!
> 
> finding out Neil's gone and then getting saddled with a new player pretty much immediately... our poor team is a little frazzled to say the least
> 
> BUT KEVIN
> 
> We freakin love Kevin man AHH
> 
> anywho, please please please leave some comments letting us know what you guys thought of everything, Jen and I can't even begin to express how amazing it is to see all the kudos and comments you guys are leaving and we absolutely LOVE responding and interacting with you guys (it's probably one of the best parts of my day ngl)
> 
> Next Time:
> 
> “Sticky notes,” Jean grumbled once he’d turned back to his food.
> 
> Maeve hummed in agreement before faltering. “Wait-”
> 
> “He’s helping,” Neil advised.


	6. Broken Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil and Jean struggle with their overworked and abused bodies, Maeve has taken debatably drastic measures to achieve a very specific goal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there you stunning people
> 
> This chapter is a little later in the day than we usually post so I apologize for that, Jen and I have had an exhausting weekend.
> 
> We're back in Neil's POV! Yay for that!
> 
> This chapter is definitely more light-hearted than the last few have been, the characters really deserve a little bit of a break before everything goes to shit again (consider that a warning...)
> 
> Content warnings...  
> scenes dealing with the aftermath of physical abuse, excessive sarcastic banter, hidden threats
> 
> I think that's it? like I said earlier, this chapter is a bit of a break for our boys (and for all of us) before diving back into some angsty and all around unpleasant stuff :(
> 
> anyway...
> 
> Enjoy!  
>  \- Mac and Jen <3

~Neil~

Consciousness was convoluted.

One minute they were on the court getting their asses kicked by Riko, and the next Neil was restrained in the locker room and there was a knife under the skin of his chest.

He was struggling. He’d thought Christmas break was bad, that Riko had reached peak cruelty and his threats to the Foxes at an all-time high. Jean told him it would get worse. Jean  **told** him. But still, Neil had thought Riko would ease up considering they had actual Exy games to play.

“Devil, can you reach the pain pills?”

Neil peeled his eyes open, head tilted back against the bathroom cabinets. Jean was sitting in the shower rinsing out Neil’s bloody shirt in the hot water and too tired to stand. They were both soaked from the spray, only now Neil was trembling faintly from the cold settling over him.

Pain pills. 

They were up on the counter. Neil could probably reach them if he could get his arms to work.

It was after midnight, they had practice again at six before classes starting at nine, but Riko had kept them on the court until after ten, whipping balls again and again until Neil thought his arms would fall off. Then Riko, as considerate as he was, let them stop, only to turn his own racquet on Neil’s legs, and then his knife on Neil’s back.

Jean had dragged him back to their room, his own body exhausted.

Pain pills.

Neil shuffled slowly, every muscle in his body protesting the movement. He wouldn’t be getting up on his own any time soon, but he could manage to lift one arm. Or at least he hoped he could.

“Hold on,” Neil grumbled. “I can probably.”

Jean glanced over, an awful bruise on his jaw already swelling. He’d tried to jump in near the end when Neil was beginning to think Riko would break both his legs and leave him to die. “Don’t strain yourself, you foolish creature. You need to be able to stand in the morning.”

“I don’t need my arms to stand,” Neil countered, finally getting a hand up on the counter.

“You need them to hold your racquet.”

Neil patted hopelessly against the counter until his fingers caught the edge of the pack and groaned. “Do I?”

He tugged and both his arm and the pill pack came down.

Jean glared at him, but the bruise he took for Neil, and the shower he was in for Neil, and the fact that he was scrubbing the blood out of one of Neil’s undershirts really took away from the effect of it all. “If you cannot perform you know what he’ll do.”

Neil winced, fingers scrabbling at the edge of the pill pack to scoop it off the floor. 

He knew  **exactly** what Riko would do if he couldn’t perform tomorrow. He knew all about the knives that would cut deeper into his skin than they were allowed to for now, and the bones that would break if they didn’t need him to play. Would Riko kill him quickly? Or would he keep him around a little longer just to show that he could?

“Thanks, Jean, I forgot.”

The shower shut off, and Neil looked up from where he was still clawing at the pill pack to watch Jean wring out the shirt and basically crawl out of the shower.

“You know what I mean,  _ little fox _ .”

Neil’s lips twitched into a smile as he finally got the pack up off the floor and into his hands. 

His arms were wrecked. He hadn’t quite blown out the muscles, but he was damn near close to it. It certainly didn’t help that the slashes on his back—already cleaned and bandaged by Jean’s steady hands—went right across the muscles of his shoulders. His legs weren’t in much better condition, the muscles weren’t any more sore than usual, but sitting there in wet and clingy boxer briefs the damage was terribly clear. The bruises were layered and deep, down to the bone if Neil judged the pain of them. Line after line from Riko’s racquet scoring his thighs front and back. 

Running around the court tomorrow wouldn’t be any kind of fun.

“ _ Give me that, _ ” Jean muttered, swatting Neil’s fumbling hands away from the blister pack of pain pills. He popped out three, handed two over to Neil, and took one himself. It wasn’t often that Jean took the pills. They both felt a little safer if one of them was clear-headed, and Neil was usually in more dire need of them.

“Your head?” Neil pressed.

Jean glared softly. “He hit my chin, I’m fine.”

Neil blew out a breath slowly. “Not if you’re taking a pill.” He waited long enough for Jean to give him an unprompted answer, and when that didn’t come he tried again. “ _ Do I need to check for concussion symptoms _ ?”

Neil had been on the ground when Jean took the hit; he hadn’t seen it happen. He didn’t know what Riko hit him with or how many times, he didn’t know how hard or at what angle. If he’d seen he’d have a better judge on what sort of damage Riko had done, all he could catalogue now was that awful bruise and the pill. 

If he looked long enough Neil would argue that Jean’s eyes looked a little glassy if not unfocused, but he was in rough enough shape himself he might have been seeing things.

Jean was quiet a few minutes longer. “Yeah,” he conceded.

Neil reached out and Jean slid over to him, settling his jaw in Neil’s cupped palm. 

Neil pressed his fingers into the bruise lightly, drawing a low hiss from Jean. Neil clicked his tongue and his other hand came up to push the hair out of Jean’s eyes. 

“ _ You shouldn’t have interfered _ ,” Neil chastised. 

Jean’s eyes looked clear enough, pupils the same size and adequately sized.

Jean grumbled quietly. “ _ You didn’t see his face, he wouldn’t have stopped. _ ”

“Blink,” Neil ordered. Jean did, and the dilation was even and normal enough not to be concerning. “ _ He would have stopped eventually, I’m still worth something _ .”

Jean pulled back as Neil released him. “ _ You’re worth nothing if he breaks you _ .”

Neil shrugged. “How many cuts on my back?” It was an easy question, testing Jean’s cognitive function. Neil wasn’t expecting the light flinch.

“Eleven,” Jean muttered.

It was the right answer, but it wasn’t the response Neil wanted to see.

“ _ It wasn’t your fault _ ,” Neil reminded him.

Jean slipped the blister pack of pills back into the under-sink cabinet, eyes turned away from Neil.

“Hey,” Neil called. “ _ It was not your fault. Riko will not stop until I do, we both know that _ .”

Jean laughed bitterly, but his eyes, concussion-free but still distant, were cold. “ _ We’re partners, and yet you have taken nearly every hit since you arrived _ .”

Neil reached out again, fingers tapping lightly against the bruise on Jean’s jaw. “ _ Not every hit _ .”

“ _ Near enough _ .” 

Neil sighed, fingers lingering on Jean’s skin. “ _ It was my choice, Jean. I don’t enjoy watching other people endure the consequences of my behavior. I can bear my own burdens _ .”

Jean stood, brushing off the conversation easily. “ _ You  _ **_are_ ** _ a burden _ .”

Neil grinned and took the hand Jean extended down to him. The pain was muted now, dulled enough that he could climb to his feet and shuffle out to his bed with minimal help from Jean. 

In the morning the pain would be back. His legs would tremble with every step and his arms would protest the weight of his racquet. His shoulders would scream for every time he threw or caught the ball and his torso would cave in with every hit he took.

But that was something to worry about then.

“ _ You love me _ ,” Neil teased.

Jean shoved him back onto his bed and stalked over to his own, the image ruined by the limp caused by the pulled muscle they didn’t have the time to fix.

“ _ I detest you _ .”

It wasn’t quite Andrew’s ‘I hate you’, but it was close enough Neil almost felt like he was home again, laying back on the gravel of the roof instead of a bed in the Nest.

* * *

Neil dragged himself off the court floor again, his head spinning. Johnson was standing over him still because clearly Neil still posed a threat laid out on the floor. 

By the time Neil got back to his feet, the play had moved to the other end of the court and he jogged back to half court to wait for Jean to break up the play and send the ball zipping back to his racquet net.

He didn’t have to wait long before Jean netted the ball and without looking up sent it careening into the space Neil was moving into. He ducked under Johnson's arm and extended racquet, spinning away from the massive backliner and taking off down the court. He caught the ball before the bounce and it was out of his racquet in two steps, sailing over right where Riko wanted it.

Neil had always had a sort of sixth sense.

Jean attributed it to Neil’s time on the run and Neil suspected he was probably right. He survived because he was always aware of his surroundings. From the time he was ten he could rattle off every detail of the space he was in on command without so much as opening his eyes. 

In the Nest, this had been kicked into overdrive. At any given moment he knew exactly where everyone else was. That hyper-awareness served him well on the court. He knew where Riko was, where Jean was, where the ball was, where the backliners and goalie he needed to get past were. 

He’d gotten attuned to Kevin and Andrew back with the Foxes, but this was a whole different level. He didn’t have to look, he didn’t have to think, he knew instinctively and he reacted immediately. It was what was keeping him alive. His skill on the court was all he was worth, the second he wasn’t good enough for Tetsuji he was Riko’s to take apart.

The goal lit up red a half-second after the ball found Riko’s net.

Neil made his way back to his position, and Riko came up beside him. “Did I not hit you hard enough, Wesninski?” Riko sneered. “You’re still quick on your feet.”

Neil stared him down. “I know how to get back up.”

Riko’s eyes narrowed. “One day you won’t.”

Neil shrugged. “It won’t be because of you.”

Riko took a step forward, but the crack of Tetsuji’s cane on the plexiglass brought them both to attention. 

“ _ Well done, Number Four _ .” Tetsuji spoke in Japanese, it was only the Perfect Court that was expected to understand him, but Neil knew enough of the team had picked up on basic commands and praises from the Coach. They all turned to Neil then, wide-eyed at the praise he was receiving. “ _ You’re progressing nicely, I expect it to continue _ .”

Both Neil and Riko heard the threat in that. Riko backed down, striding away from Neil.

“ _ Yes, Master _ ,” Neil responded, ducking his head in a bow.

He took his spot, adjusted his grip on his racquet. He could feel Jean and Riko’s eyes on him, one gaze concerned and the other furious. 

He knew what Tetsuji had just said. For now, with the first game in a few days, Neil was off-limits. Riko could beat him down in practice, he could probably get away with a few stray punches and kicks in the locker room. But for the next three days, Riko couldn’t cut him open, not if they wanted him to play well.

They took longer in the locker room today, Neil’s shoulder and legs layered with injuries that kept his movements as minimal as possible. Jean stayed with him, giving him space but ready to step in where Neil needed help.

Riko was nowhere to be found.

Neil wondered what poor sucker was taking his rage now he and Jean were off-limits. He had a pretty good idea of how this was going to go. For the three days leading up to the game Riko would watch closer than usual, pouncing violently on every misstep and punishing more severely than necessary but not enough for Tetsuji to step in. They’d play on Thursday, they’d win, and Riko would celebrate by taking Neil apart with a knife or two. 

They’d probably be fair game for the few days following, but then they’d be three days before their next game and Tetsuji would have Riko back off again so his Three and Four could heal well enough to play the way they were expected to.

It was the best Neil could expect. And he’d take it for what it was.

“ _ Hurry now, devil, _ ” Jean muttered, toweling off his hair carefully. The bruise on his jaw was worse than it had been last night, and though he wouldn’t say it Neil knew from the pain pill Jean tried to hide taking that the backliners head and jaw were hurting more than he let on. “ _ Maeve can’t hold the table on her own. _ ”

It was a weak excuse. Jean was worried Riko would come in soon especially now they were the only two left. Neil didn’t disagree but he did mumble back.

“ _ The others know enough to leave the table for us _ .” Or at least they did after one of the players tried to knock Neil out of the way for it and he loosed himself on them in a panic. “ _ Most of them wouldn’t touch Mae with a ten-foot pole nor us with a twenty _ .”

Jean scoffed through his nose but reached out to turn the water off on Neil.

He was too tired to argue and too sore to turn it back on himself. Neil just took the towel offered to him and shuffled after a half dressed Jean to their lockers.

Neil managed on his own until it came to pulling on a shirt. He got his head through, but he couldn’t get his arms high enough to put through the sleeves. It was with a sad disapproval that Jean helped, muttering all the ways Neil would make up for it—notably doing a week's worth of Jean’s homework or holding his tongue long enough they didn’t get their asses kicked on the court.

Neil hissed disagreements to both a little too enthusiastically.

Maeve was already at their table by the time Jean and Neil finally and painfully shuffled their way out of the locker room. 

“ _ You sit _ ,” Jean instructed. “ _ I’ll get breakfast _ .”

It was a kindness considering Neil was in far worse shape than Jean, but Neil watched him go and wasn’t pleased about it. The Frenchman wasn’t in good shape either, and he was more vulnerable on his own. They both knew nobody would touch them, they were still Three and Four, but on Riko’s orders…

Jean peeled off for the kitchen space, joining Ivanova and leaving Neil to shuffle around the back of Maeve’s chair. He glanced down as he passed, her headphones were in and she was frowning down at the screen of her phone. He was expecting a show, or maybe a complex game based on her focus, but that, he knew that screen.

“Is that Duolingo?” 

Maeve jumped in her seat, head whipping around to pin Neil with a glare. She slapped her phone onto the table, screen down and out of sight. “No.”

Neil’s lips twitched, pulling up into a smirk as she turned back to the table. “No, it totally was.”

“It was  **not** ,” Maeve insisted. “Shut up.”

Neil barked a laugh, lowering himself slowly into the seat next to her. She wasn’t watching but her arm twitched out to his side, offering him a hold if he needed the help.

“I don’t have an off switch,” Neil reminded her. “Why Duolingo? That owl is shit.”

“I’m not-” Maeve blinked over at him. “Even if I was using Duolingo, which I’m  **not** , the owl is  **not** shit, the owl is terrifying and aggressive.”

Neil scoffed. “Sounds like Jean.”

“Jean is grumpy and sarcastic,” Maeve corrected. She swatted Neil’s hand away from her apple slices. “ **You’re** terrifying and aggressive.”

Neil yanked his hand back, a single apple wedge in his grip. “Are you comparing me to the Duolingo owl?”

Maeve frowned as Neil crunched down on the stolen apple slice. “ _ Chouette _ .” 

Neil blinked at her, choking on his laugh. “You mean  _ hibou _ ?”

“No?” Meave grumbled, a befuddled frown falling back onto her face.

Neil coughed lightly, a bit of apple caught in his throat. “ _ Chouette _ is feminine and the last time I checked…” Neil trailed off and pointedly looked down.

“There-” Maeve flushed. “There’s different words for gendered owls?”

Neil laughed again, airway free of apple this time. “Yeah, you meant  _ hibou _ .” He reached for another slice while she muttered under her breath about ‘stupid French and stupid genders’ but she caught his wrist in time. “I won’t tell Jean if you won’t.”

Maeve dropped her face down onto the table. She stayed there long enough for Neil to steal and eat another apple slice before she pulled herself back up. “Deal,” she grumbled.

“I can guarantee,” Neil continued. “That I am a  **far** better French teacher than your terrifying aggressive owl.”

“You  **are** a terrifying aggressive owl.”

Neil scoffed lightly, but he felt the pull across his bruised chest. One of these days, he’d get back at Riko for all of this. One day. “So I’m the perfect teacher.”

“Right,” Maeve deadpanned.

“‘Scuse me,” Neil argued, his hand getting smacked away from a third apple slice. “But your aim has improved  **tenfold** since I helped you with your grip.”

Maeve rolled her eyes, pulling her breakfast plate out of Neil’s reach. “So what? You teach me French and?”

Neil shrugged, pulling his hands into his lap oh so innocently. “I teach you French.”

“The catch?”

“Does there have to be a catch?” Neil pressed. He didn’t quite understand. Neil hadn’t grown up with kindness, he hadn’t grown up with people doing things for him and offering up assistance. But Neil was good at giving it. He always tried to do good for his mother, to make things easier on her. Wasn’t this the same sort of thing? “Let’s just leave it with you owing me a favour.”

Maeve looked down at her locked phone, back up at Neil. Clearly, she didn’t see much of a threat in his slumped shoulders and injured body. 

He knew he hid it well enough, but Maeve saw more than he gave her credit for. He and Jean spent fifteen minutes every morning before they left the room stretching out and loosening overworked muscles and testing the limits of their injuries, but there were some things they couldn’t hide; the way they shuffled slowly over, the bruises splattered across their skin. Maeve wasn’t stupid.

“Okay deal,” she agreed. “You teach me French, and I owe you a favor, but I still have my morals intact so you know there’s… certain favors that are off-limits.”

Neil’s eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

Maeve stared for only a second before she seemed to clue into something Neil didn’t understand at all. “You know what, nevermind. I reserve the right to say no if I have to.”

Neil nodded, “That was a given.” 

“What?” 

Neil frowned. “Saying no,” he answered. “If you’re not comfortable of course you can say no.”

“That-” Maeve paused a spoonful of oats halfway to her mouth. “Neil, that's not a given.” Neil’s frown deepened and Maeve rushed to continue. “Don’t get me wrong it  **should** be, but guys aren’t usually… you know.”

“I  **don’t** know.”

Maeve pressed her lips together and her eyebrows inched closer together. “Okay, you uh, ask Jean about it okay?” She didn’t give Neil a chance to counter before grinning up at him. “Okay, so French.”

Jean dropped down across from them, summoned by the mention of French alone. “French?” He slid a plate across to Neil, followed by a heaping bowl of steaming oatmeal. 

There was brown sugar on top, as well as peaches **and** blackberries. Neil took it gratefully, spooning it up and ignoring the plate of protein bread and actual proteins for the time being. Two eggs, scrambled softly; half a tomato, fried; and three links of chicken sausage.

Neil was four spoonfuls deep when Jean spoke again.

“ _ Don’t tell me you agreed to teach her _ .”

Neil rolled his eyes and cut through a peach with his spoon. “ _ She was threatening to use Duolingo _ .”

Jean grimaced and raised an eyebrow at Maeve. “Duolingo? You’d sink so low?”

Maeve huffed. “Spare me the lecture.”

“I refuse to help.”

Neil looked up quickly at the backliner. He knew better than to take what he said at face value. He also knew far better than to think Jean would let Maeve anywhere near his mother tongue without his guidance. “I didn’t think you’d offer,” he said.

Jean glared flatly at him, and Neil tried not to look at the awful bruise. He tried not to remember the crack of Riko’s racquet—Jean wouldn’t confirm but Neil replayed the sound in his head and he was almost certain it  **had** been a racquet—on Jean’s jaw. “Sticky notes,” Jean grumbled once he’d turned back to his food.

Maeve hummed in agreement before faltering. “Wait-”

“He’s helping,” Neil advised.

He’d done the same thing a few times when he and his mother were holed up somewhere for the long haul. He’d scrounged the streets for money, bought a cheap pack of stickies from the dollar store, and labeled every possession they had. It helped that he’d been dropped in Germany, and then dropped in Austria. He’d been surrounded by the language completely. 

“Sticky notes are helping?” 

Neil grinned cheekily at Jean before turning his eyes on Maeve. “Yup.”

She looked between them thrice. Jean glowering at his fruitless pumpkin seed decorated oatmeal, Neil grinning with a bit of peach skin stuck between his teeth. “You’re both insane.”

“I know three languages fluently, and I can get by pretty well in four others,” Neil reminded her, shoving a too big mouthful of fried tomato into his mouth.

“You-” Maeve faltered, turning to look at Jean. “Really?”

Jean looked at Neil and back at Maeve, contemplating, considering. “He does. I speak three myself.”

“Fluently?!” 

Jean turned to Neil now, “ _ You’re both stupid, I cannot believe I speak to either of you _ .”

Maeve turned to Neil for a translation, flicking the back of his hand once.

“He said he loved us,” Neil said with a saccharine smile on his face.

“Somehow,” Maeve muttered. “I feel like you’re wrong.”

“What ever gave you that idea?” Jean grumbled.

Neil winced. “ _ You did call her stupid _ .”

Jean snorted very ungracefully. A few weeks ago Neil never would have expected the noise to come from him. By now Neil knew Jean well enough to have seen it coming a mile away. “ _ I called you both stupid, and I’ve yet to be proven wrong. _ ”

“ _ If we were that stupid we’d be dead, _ ” Neil reminded him. 

He wasn’t wrong. In the Nest stupidity really did get you killed. Neil was rather surprised he hadn’t been beaten to death by now. He wasn’t sure who he had to thank, himself, Riko, Tetsuji… 

“ _ You would be if I wasn’t here. _ ”

That made sense.

“Hello,” Maeve sing-songed. Neil glanced back at her, grin tugging into place at the raised eyebrow expression she’d adopted from him and Jean. “I’m still confused over here.”

Jean leaned across the table, fork flicking out to roll one of the chicken sausages Neil hated in a reminder to eat the damn thing. “Neil thinks you’re stupid.”

“What?” Neil stuttered. “I- that’s not at  **all** what happened.”

“Rude,” Maeve hummed. She was teasing him, Neil knew enough by now to figure that out. “Lie to my face, Josten, why don’t you?”

“You’re both awful,” Neil accused.

Jean echoed him in French, the same words rolling smoothly off his tongue in the other language. Again Maeve turned to Neil for the translation.

“Same thing, but French.”

“Oh,” Maeve blinked her surprise and passed an apple slice into Neil’s outstretched hand. “Thanks?”

Jean glared. “Do not.”

“ _You’re getting soft grumpy,_ ” Neil muttered light and teasing. “ _Should I tell her how much you care?_ ”

“ _ If you want to survive until morning you will close your mouth and eat. _ ” Jean’s words were warning, but his eyes were amused as he stared down his own breakfast and pushed oatmeal around with his spoon.

“ _ Well, I can’t eat if my mouth is closed. _ ”

Jean sighed. “ _ I’m hiding all the pain medication. _ ”

Neil laughed a little too loudly, enough that he drew the attention of a few lingering Ravens. They looked away quickly enough, and for once Neil wasn’t all that bothered by their offending glances. Maeve looked between the two of them with a confused amusement on her face, lips parted and forehead wrinkled.

Neil wanted to close his eyes and pretend he was home, that he was back in Palmetto with Maeve and Jean and his Foxes. He didn’t think they’d get along all that well, certainly not at first, but the Foxes were his family, Jean was his partner, and Maeve was something like them both.

It was all unfamiliar to him in a terrifying way.

“I don’t even want to know,” Maeve grumbled.

“Good,” Jean agreed. “Not your business.”

“Jean was just expressing his unrestrained affection for us both,” Neil told her. Jean ignored him in favor of eating, but Neil saw the affection in his posture, the fondness for them both in the relaxed set of his shoulders.

Maeve snorted, “Right, I'm sure that’s exactly what that was.”

Neil only shrugged, “Trust what you will.”

“ _ You literally survived eight years by lying, no? _ ” 

Jean’s soft French startled Neil into laughing and his answer came tumbling out in English as he shrugged in concession. “Well if you put it that way.”

“Exactly,” Maeve agreed. She shrugged at the expressions Jean and Neil turned her way. “I felt like I should contribute.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there we go, a little bit of fun and teasing to give everyone time to heal
> 
> I treasure Neil and Jean's relationship too much for it to be healthy honestly and I've got absolutely no shame about it, the only partway teasing pet names, the way they look out for each other in the little ways they can, the way they're just so hyper-aware of each other
> 
> I'm a sucker for a good JeanNeil friendship ah!
> 
> Maeve being an absolute doll
> 
> she's sort of like that weird new-but-not-actually-new girl in class that you've never met before and then can't help adopting once you do meet her. 
> 
> Next chapter is a little chaotic lol there's about...7? POV switches but only three POV's... does that make sense? there's three POV's used but it jumps between them 7 times... it'll make sense when you read it I promise, Jen and I just kind of realized the chapter worked best when certain scenes were from certain POV's and thing got all jumbly (but in a good way I think?)
> 
> As always, your guys' comments and kudos are literally the best parts of my day (and Jen's too) so let us know what you think of everything so far, we love to hear from you!
> 
> Next Time:
> 
> “I was speaking with Jean earlier today,” she told him. “He’s asked me something, rather interesting.”
> 
> Andrew turned back to the parking lot, largely disinterested but listening for the sake of avoiding certain thoughts about a certain person that he was still somehow circling back to. He tossed the butt of yet another cigarette over the roof and pulled out another. 
> 
> “And?”
> 
> Again Renee smiled her thanks at his presence in the conversation. “He’d like to call.”


	7. Everything You Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil reaches out through Jean, and Riko decides to make everyone's lives just that little bit harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooooo
> 
> this is early.
> 
> we got an amazing comment from SaberK and (maybe a little impulsively) decided that since it was their birthday, and their comment was just so incredible we had to post early.
> 
> this one is a bit of a long one, it was basically three different scenes that got stitched together because it just didn't feel right no matter how we tried to split them up.
> 
> content warnings: (this one is a little rough) discussion of rape/non-con elements (Andrew's time in Easthaven), referenced physical violence, dealing with the aftermath of torture/violence, psychological torture, dissociative tendencies/dissociating as a coping mechanism, flashbacks to a murder, panic attack, Riko being Riko
> 
> if there's anything we missed please be sure to let us know
> 
> (if you haven't noticed this one is a liiiiiittle bit rough)
> 
> Enjoy!  
>  \- Mac & Jen <3

~Andrew~

Andrew stood on the roof, toes safe in his shoes but hanging over the edge of nothing. If he kept his weight in his heels he’d be fine, but if he shifted just the smallest amount of his weight to the balls of his feet he’d be tumbling four stories onto hard asphalt. 

He stood there, cigarette burning down the filter and staring down at the sidewalk and parking lot beneath him until a moist warmth bubbling in his gut and caused his heart to stutter in his chest. He forced himself to stay still, to keep looking down at the space under him until his skin was crawling, itching so badly he could feel a full-body shiver coming along.

Then he stepped back, untrusting that the shake of his body wouldn’t do him in.

Andrew didn’t go far, he sat right there on the edge, spinning his legs over the edge so they dangled into the fall. The bubbling, crawling, many-legged feeling settled back into the pit of his stomach but it was still there, keeping him as close to jittery as someone like Andrew was able to get.

The heat of his cigarette kissed his fingers and he glanced at the little bud left of it. He hadn’t even smoked most of it, wasted it away like a certain lying rabbit. 

Andrew let it tumble over the edge in his place and lit up another, sticking this one between his teeth so he’d at least accidentally smoke it.

And like that, his thoughts gave themselves permission to wander all the way to West Virginia.

Andrew didn’t know much about the Nest, but he knew it wasn’t designed for rabbits who like to run and lie and wriggle their way into places they were never allowed to be. Andrew saw those pretty blue eyes and something other started stirring in him, something akin to desire but just to the left.

He could admit that he was attracted to Neil Josten. Not to anyone but himself—and to Bee—but attraction wasn’t feeling. It was the same shit he did with Roland, only, he hadn’t done that since Neil Josten came around.

It wasn’t anything more than that.

Only, Andrew did better with the truth. He could spin a convincing lie, sure. But honestly often suited Andrew, it stirred things up and got things moving, and it was at least one good thing others had to say about him. Regardless of every other messed up thing you could say about Andrew Minyard, he was more often honest than he wasn’t.

And Andrew could only lie to himself for so long. 

On the medication it had been a little easier, everything he was feeling was twisted and detached from himself. He was manic and fighting for basic control of himself nearly every day. It’s easy to lie to someone who can’t tell the difference between medication-induced emotion and the real thing.

But Andrew was sober now, and the stupid rabbit wasn’t even here, and still,  **still,** Andrew **felt.**

He hated it. And he hated Neil Josten for doing it to him.

He worked his way through three more cigarettes before Renee came up. Apparently, on top of everything else Neil Josten did to him, the rabbit turned Andrew into a chain smoker too.

She dropped next to him, sitting sideways so she faced him instead of facing out, and she kept a great deal of space between them. 

Andrew didn’t turn to her, didn’t acknowledge her.

In another life, he might have given her that medical grin and muttered ‘I probably won’t push you off’. In this life, Andrew was fine with the space; he preferred the space, but he wished that she didn’t know that. He wished Renee sat closer so he could shove her off, or threaten her for space. 

He wished that Renee was a different person entirely; that she was a certain runaway rabbit liar.

“Andrew,” Renee said. She kept her voice clear but light enough not to carry. It was a conversation just for the two of them, any jock meandering around outside the building or loitering in the parking lot wasn’t meant to hear whatever this was.

That was why Andrew tilted his head to her. He said nothing, but the acknowledgment of her speaking was her encouragement to continue. Just like Josten she understood and pressed forwards.

She smiled softly like she was grateful he’d given her such permission. Andrew didn’t like that. “I was speaking with Jean earlier today,” she told him. “He’s asked me something, rather interesting.”

Andrew turned back to the parking lot, largely disinterested but listening for the sake of avoiding certain thoughts about a certain person that he was still somehow circling back to. He tossed the butt of yet another cigarette over the roof and pulled out another. 

“And?”

Again Renee smiled her thanks at his presence in the conversation. “He’d like to call.”

Now that, that was interesting because it shouldn’t have been interesting at all. As far as Andrew knew Renee and Moreau had already had their fair share of phone calls. There shouldn’t be anything special about Moreau asking to call her again.

“Are you trying to talk to me about your love life, Christian Girl?”

Andrew knew she wasn’t, but he also knew she wouldn’t continue unless prompted. She wasn’t like Neil in that way, he’d keep going until Andrew stopped him.

Renee, as expected, blew out a soft little laugh. So gentle when underneath all that softness there was a murderer. “No, Andrew,” she said, agreeing with his thoughts. “Jean wants to speak with  **you.** ”

Ah. There it was.

And that was rather unfortunate for Moreau wasn’t it? Because Andrew had no interest in speaking to the Raven. Not in the slightest.

“No.”

He tossed his cigarette, not even half-finished, and shifted his weight to stand.

“He said it was Neil,” Renee continued, and that was enough to make Andrew freeze, hips turned and half lifted. “It’s Jean’s phone, but he said Neil wanted to talk with you. I’ve been asking after him for some time but…” Renee shrugged. “Jean says he won’t talk with me or anyone else, but he asked for you.”

Oh now that, that wasn’t fair of the rabbit, was it? He made Andrew a promise, told Andrew to trust him, and then he got up and left before Andrew could even get back. And now here Andrew was  **feeling** things and Neil Josten refused to talk to anyone but him.

That wasn’t very nice at all.

“When?”

Renee’s phone started to ring, a gentle French lullaby playing. Andrew raised an eyebrow at her, turned enough she could see the expression on his face. There was no embarrassment on her face, nothing but that sickly sweet Christian Girl smile he saw right through.

“I had a feeling you’d come around,” she confessed. “You never seem to be able to say no to Neil.”

“I hate him,” Andrew said.

“Maybe,” Renee hummed, but she answered the phone anyway, her face softening out and transforming. “Hello, Jean… hm?” Andrew could almost hear the mutter of the backliner. “Yes, of course.”

“-they have to be careful, if anyone finds out they’ve spoken things will be bad here, Riko doesn't take lightly to insult and Minyard is as insulting as they come. I will be with him the entire time and if Minyard is out of line once _ - _ ”

Moreau babbled on for longer, but Andrew didn’t care to eavesdrop any longer.  **Things will be bad here.** Were they not already?

“I understand, Jean,” Renee promised. “We’ll be very discrete.” There was a pause, a shuffle, phone exchanging hands, and then- “Neil?” Renee asked. “It’s good to hear from you.”

Andrew was listening again, straining to pick up the tones of Neil’s voice.

“Yeah, I-” the exhale trembled. Was he in pain? Was he scared? “Did you, I mean is he-?”

Renee pulled out her soft smile, the one she seemed to have reserved for Neil and Neil alone. It seemed right, Andrew had his own Renee smile, Neil had one too. They were similarly delicate things, but the one Renee gave to Andrew had a knowing sharpness to it. The one she gave to Neil now held a hesitant gentleness like she wasn’t sure if he would take it but she knew he needed it anyway. Like holding a hand out to a stray dog, waiting to see if it bit down, or asked for a scratch behind the ear.

“He is,” she said, glancing at Andrew. 

He tried to pretend he wasn’t paying attention, but Renee knew him well enough. He didn’t like that. Being known, being seen. Even the little that Renee knew was too much, and Neil… Neil somehow knew more than she did. She must have seen the way his shoulder shook with his breaths, but she didn’t comment, didn’t let her eyes linger at all.

“Yes, Neil. We’re all okay.”

**Stupid, martyr rabbit,** Andrew cursed. It was just like Neil to ask after them, when he was the one in the Nest; when he was the one in trouble.

Andrew needed to get a grip on himself  **now.**

Renee smiled again, and then her hand was stretched out to Andrew offering him the phone. He took it and watched waiting until she stood and walked away. She slipped through the door off the roof, but Andrew knew she hadn’t left. She would be there waiting for him when this was over. She was giving him space to figure out whatever this was with Neil.

**Nothing,** he reminded himself.  **This is nothing, he’s not even here.**

Andrew lifted the phone to his ear.

It was a bad choice. Oh, it was a very bad choice. Neil’s breathing was a little too heavy and a little too quick. It was easy to hear that he was terrified, but Andrew couldn’t be sure why. He couldn’t be sure why his own chest got a little tighter listening to Neil breathe like that.

“Andrew?”

Andrew’s fist clenched at his side. The way Neil said his name like it was salvation and damnation in the same breath. Now that wasn’t fair.

“Neil,” Andrew answered.

“Are you okay?” Neil asked.

Andrew wouldn’t answer that, he refused to answer that. Neil asking if Andrew was okay? No.

“Right, okay…” At least Neil seemed to understand that much still. “I’m sorry.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow Neil couldn’t see. “For?”

“I-” Neil stuttered over himself. “Well, I-”

“Shut up, Neil.”

And Neil, obedient as ever, shut up. 

It gave Andrew a moment to collect himself, to slow his racing heart, keep his breathing level and calm. He lit another cigarette, was it his fifth or seventh? He couldn’t remember, and that was as disarming as Neil’s voice had been. 

Oh, Andrew hated this.

“You broke your promise,” Andrew settled on.

“Kevin’s safe.” The reply came too fast, practiced, and rehearsed. “I didn’t break anything-” Was that a scoff in the background? “I never said I’d hold his hand the whole time.”

Still with a razor-sharp tongue then, at least Riko hadn’t had the good sense to cut it out.

“It was implied.”

“It was  **not,** ” Neil argued.

Andrew couldn’t help himself. “I hate you.”

There was a breath of silence, and when Neil spoke again Andrew could hear the smile in his voice, and he hated that too. “I know.”

In another breath of silence, Andrew could hear Jean shuffling in the background. He wasn’t a fan of the backliner sitting in on the conversation, but if it kept Neil safe…

“It’s my turn,” Andrew said.

Neil’s heavy exhale told Andrew that Neil knew exactly what Andrew was going to ask. “Yes, what d’you want to know?”

“I don’t  **want** anything.” Why did it sound like Andrew was convincing himself? 

“Sorry, yeah,” Neil scoffed, his pleasant little ‘yes’ gone. “You want nothing.”

**Nothing, nothing, nothing.**

“Why did you go?”

Neil’s answer was there and waiting, a practiced lie. “I had to keep Kevin safe.”

Andrew clicked his tongue. “Don’t lie rabbit, this didn’t have anything to do with Kevin.”

Neil faltered then, his quick-witted words failing him. Andrew could almost see him sitting there beside him, legs dangling over the edge. Andrew could see those blue eyes dancing over the drop, studying the blankness of Andrew’s face now. What would Neil think of who Andrew was off the medication? Manic smiled scrounged away.

**Joyless and destructive,** Nicky said.

Would Neil say the same? Neil always saw Andrew, and Andrew hated that, but maybe…

Nobody saw Andrew now.

“He was making threats,” Neil finally conceded. “I had to at least try.”

“Who did he threaten?”

Andrew saw the way Kevin and Wymack looked at him, he heard Allison’s remarks, but until Neil said it he couldn’t believe it. What could Riko possibly threaten Andrew with that Neil would bite the bullet for him?

“You already took your turn,” Neil muttered.

“Neil.”

A warning? A threat? Neither?

He could hear Jean’s voice, muttering in French Andrew couldn’t hear properly, but then Neil spoke, French rolling off his tongue and  **oh.** Andrew didn’t forget anything but he’d forgotten just how nice that sounded.  **Shit.**

“Jean enough,” Neil insisted. “ _ C’est Andrew, Jean, il n’est pas- non, il n’est pas comme ça _ .”

What was the runaway rabbit saying, hm? Andrew knew his own name, even accented in that pretty French tongue, he knew the tone of desperate reassurances.

“ _ Je ne lui fais pas confiance _ ,” Jean retorted. And there was nothing in that for Andrew to dissect.

“ _ Eh bien, je fais _ ,” Neil said, and there was something final in that stopping Jean from responding. “Riko paid off a doctor,” Neil confessed. “Proust, he said that he’d-”

“Stop.”

Andrew didn’t want to hear it.

Five weeks Andrew fought against Proust’s across-the-line contact, against hands wandering just over the line of too far, and then two weeks—the two weeks over Christmas break—nothing. Proust vanished from Easthaven completely. Proust left because Neil gave himself to Riko.

“I’m sorry, I’ll kill him, Andrew I  **will,** I-”

“He stopped,” Andrew said it before he could stop himself, but he couldn’t sit there and listen to the pain in Neil’s voice, the promise of violence in his little rabbit—his not-rabbit, not  **his** anything. “He stopped.”

Andrew wasn’t sure he’d really  **started.** Proust did a lot of molestation, a lot of touching where he shouldn’t be when Andrew was too out of his mind sick with withdrawal to do anything about it. But he had a feeling Riko had threatened a lot worse than wandering hands and sick smiles, and Proust never got Andrew that vulnerable.

Not like Drake had.

It was quiet for a long time, Neil’s ragged breathing evening out slowly.

“It’s your turn,” Andrew said.

“I don’t-” Neil took another fragile breath. “I don’t want to take it right now.”

“Is that all then?” Andrew pressed. He was getting uncomfortably close to feeling things right now. It was itching under his skin, pulling him apart slowly and Andrew was fighting far too hard to keep himself together.

“No,” Neil breathed. “Wait.”

Andrew waited, far too willing to listen to anything Neil wanted from him. And damn Neil Josten for doing this to him.

Neil cleared his throat, a stupid way of wasting time. Whatever he wanted he didn’t want to ask for. “I want you to break our deal.”

“No.”

“Andrew don’t be stupid,” Neil tried. “You can’t protect me in Palmetto. I don’t  **want** you to protect me.”

Lies. 

Neil was lying through his teeth. 

He was lying and either he thought Andrew wouldn’t notice or he didn’t care. Maybe that was how Neil got through this, lied until he could convince himself that it was truth bleeding across his tongue. But Andrew could taste it, he could feel it pooling in the corners of his own mouth and Andrew wouldn’t do it, he wouldn’t let Neil twist this all into, into. 

Andrew didn’t know. It was nothing, they were nothing Neil was nothing. Andrew wasn’t supposed to care about this.

“ **No.** ” 

“Andrew,” Neil tried again. “This is ridiculous.”

Andrew didn’t grace that with an answer. All he had left of Neil was that deal. Neil was too far away for him to reach and he was somewhere that wasn’t safe at all and there was nothing Andrew could do but hold onto that deal. 

They were nothing but that deal and Andrew couldn’t let it go, he  **wouldn’t.**

“Andrew-” there was something different in Neil’s voice there, something Andrew didn’t like at all. “ **Please.** ”

Andrew froze, his chest splintered apart and turned on him, stabbing deep into his lungs. Neil  **knew** he hated that word, Neil wouldn’t just use that word, he  **wouldn’t.**

“‘Drew?”

It came out harshly, his voice thick with emotions he didn’t understand, emotions he didn’t want to give Neil but was giving anyways. “ **Fine,** run away, Josten, you’re on your own.”

“Andrew, I-”

“Anything else?”

“I- no, I just-”

“Goodbye, Josten.”

Andrew nearly threw the phone off the roof when he hung up, but this was Renee’s phone, and Andrew didn’t particularly want to buy her a new one.

Andrew knew she would be there, but when he found Renee waiting in the stairwell his temper flared back up again. She smiled sweetly, and his fist curled, and his fingers itched for his knives. But no, not now, if he went for his knives now he’d kill her. He wasn’t in a place where he could stop himself.

“How did it go?”

Andrew barely suppressed a snarl. How much of this was written on his face?

“If he calls again you tell me.”

Renee’s eyes darkened, Natalie coming out to play with big bad Andrew. “That bad?” Andrew didn’t answer that. “Is Neil-?”

Andrew knew at that moment that the look on his face was murderous; lethal. He saw Renee retreat a step, saw Natalie pounce to the surface. Andrew didn’t care.

“I don’t want to hear his name again.”

And Andrew left her standing there; he needed a fucking break.

~Nathaniel~

Nathaniel lost count of how many times he found himself pinned between a backliner and the boards. The Razorbacks were a decent team, they might have given the Foxes a run for their money, but they were an easy win for the Ravens. 

He did his job well, ducking under and twisting around dangerous hits, but letting himself get pummeled otherwise. He’d been warned before the game, by Jean first and by Riko next. It was his job to look good, but not near as good as Riko. 

He netted three goals in the first half of the game before Riko raised his hand to stop him. And his good behavior was rewarded in Riko letting him score another in the last quarter.

It was brutal, riding the line between good and good enough. 

Nathaniel played like his life was on the line, and it was, but he didn’t play with the passion Neil Josten did. He couldn’t afford to lose himself on the court. 

He played off Riko, took hits he could have avoided, and by the end of the game, sore and bruised and body very close to broken, he shuffled off with his weight on Jean and Riko passed them by unconcerned.

Nathaniel did his job, and for that night at the very least, he and Jean were safe.

They were less safe when Riko came striding into their room the next morning a twisted grin and sick gleam in his eyes. They didn’t have a practice they were late for, but Riko seemed intent on testing out his knife skills.

Nathaniel writhed and fought and spat like a wildcat, but he didn’t give Riko the satisfaction of screaming or making a single sound the entire awful hour.

It was after, disoriented and denied pain pills, leaning up against Jean on an airplane that Nathaniel realized they were very,  **very,** unsafe. 

He was half out of his mind, far too aware of the rushed stitches of that morning running up his side and the shallower cuts taped closed and gauze wrapped. The pain kept him on the edge of awareness, the sharpness of his injuries blurring the space around him. He lost time in swatches of searing pain, fresh injuries haphazardly put back together with medical glue and stitches that burned near as bad. But he was present enough to see the glee in Riko’s expression and the uneasy shifting of Jean.

Neither he nor Jean had eaten since before the game, and despite Riko guzzling down bottles of water beside them neither Nathaniel nor Jean got a sip. Had the pain not been enough, the hunger and the thirst piled on top of it held him just a hair's breadth away from lucid.

Jean snuck him a few sips of water and half a pain pill when Riko’s back was turned as they clambered off the plane. It wasn’t much, and Jean kept pinching the skin on the back of Nathaniel’s hand in the car to keep him awake while it all settled in.

Nathaniel pinched him back a few times, enough to tell Jean he was still here, that he was alive and well enough to function on a basic level.

And then they were moving again, his head was spinning and if it wasn’t for Jean, Nathaniel would have been lost in the crowd. He’d have fallen over and tucked into himself and not gotten up again until someone dragged him to his feet.

He was gone again, blissfully spaced out by the secondary wave of pain brought on by all the moving around and floating. He was tethered only by Jean’s hand on his wrist tugging him forward.

He came back to himself in a plastic chair, stained concrete underfoot.

**No,** Nathaniel’s blood ran cold, panic creeping over him like a wet blanket. He knew concrete floors, he knew rusted stains. They were Baltimore, they were the basement of his father’s house, they were-

“ _ Relax _ .” 

Nathaniel started, looked up, and to his right and there was Jean. His breathing came shallow, eyes flickering to the left to find Riko grinning and chattering on his phone in Japanese. 

This wasn’t Baltimore. This wasn’t his father's basement.

Nathaniel looked straight out, eyes taking in the court, the orange-clad players stalking out for pre-game drills and warm-ups.

Neil Josten jumped to the surface, clawing and scratching and begging to take off running, to jump the division and force his way to the Foxes bench. He wanted to fall to his knees at Andrew’s feet and beg and plead to let him come back, to please take him home. He wanted  **Andrew.** Neil Josten was fragile and breaking and frayed at the seams.

Nathaniel didn’t flinch.

He stared out at the Foxes, watched them work around each other and the new body wearing number 11 and fumbling through everything. Neil stumbled, heart-clenching and Nathaniel shoved the sting of it back down. What? Did he expect the Foxes to give up? To wave goodbye and surrender?

No. **No.**

He was Nathaniel, he could handle this. But Neil was right there, screaming to be heard and seen and—

Wymack looked up, his eyes locking onto Nathaniel’s.

Nathaniel couldn’t breathe.

~Andrew~

The team was about to start drills. The first game of the championship season, minutes ticking down until the start. Andrew should have known something was coming.

“Son of a bitch,” Wymack hissed.

Andrew was the first to hear him; the first to react. He looked over, tracked Wymack’s horrified gaze, and he saw them. He saw Riko first, grinning and hanging up his phone. Then he saw Moreau, a bit too big in his seat, leaning forward like he was shielding something. And in between them, smaller than he was last Andrew saw him, shaken and frail, was Neil.

That was not a Neil that Andrew knew.

Nicky made distressed sound number twenty-one behind him, and Andrew angled his head just enough to watch the color run out of Kevin’s face. Colorful curses started tumbling from Dan’s mouth and Renee looked more like Natalie than Andrew had ever seen.

“I should go say hello,” Andrew mused.

Wymack pivoted to pin Andrew in place with a glare. “You absolutely should not,” He warned. “Get your asses on the court. Dan, drills;  **now.** ”

Andrew heard the command there, but his eyes refused to move away from Neil-not-Neil sitting between Riko and Moreau.

He didn’t even realize the rest of the Foxes were frozen too until Wymack spoke again.

“Did I fucking stutter?”

Dan jerked back to herself, ushering the team. She was smart enough to leave Andrew and Kevin as they were, more than well aware of the fact that Andrew wouldn’t hesitate to take her out of the game.

Andrew kept staring, waiting for Neil to lift those eyes up to his, waiting for Neil to  **look** at him. Andrew couldn’t go anywhere until Neil looked at him, because he wasn’t sure that  **was** Neil. He was too thin, sallow cheeks and skin paler than it should be. Andrew couldn’t see his eyes to check for that familiar blue, but his hair was different; auburn instead of black. 

**Look up.**

Slowly, so slowly Andrew might have had time to sprint over and break his fingers, Riko reached two fingers out, a vicious grin on his face as he stared down Andrew and Kevin. Those two fingers hooked under Neil’s chin and dragged his head up. Neil complied.  **Neil complied.**

Andrew wanted to kill Riko. He wanted him dead and bleeding at his feet with his knives in Riko’s throat for touching what was **Andrew’s.**

Riko will die for touching Neil.

Kevin made a noise, and it wasn’t any of the noises on the Distressed Sounds list. Andrew didn’t think it belonged there. The noise Kevin made looking at Neil was the same sort of noise Andrew expected Kevin would make if he was being tortured.

This was a sort of torture, wasn’t it?

“Kevin,” Wymack snapped, and even tortured and staring at a tortured Neil, Kevin still managed to flinch. “Get a grip. Minyard…”

Andrew didn’t budge.

“Minyard,” Wymack repeated. “Andrew.” Andrew turned his eyes onto Wymack, leveling him a dead look. “Drills,” Wymack finished.

Andrew looked back at Neil, ignoring the irony in Wymack turning to look too. He gave himself three seconds. Three seconds to catalogue the changes in the rabbit striker. Three. 

Andrew’s hand closed on Kevin’s shoulder and he spun him, roughly shoving him away from Neil and Riko and Moreau and back towards the Foxes.

“Let’s go, Kevin,” Andrew grumbled.

~Kevin~

Kevin couldn’t focus, on second thought, Kevin couldn't  **think.**

His entire world had suddenly boiled down to a single moment eight years ago; Nathaniel Wesninski unflinching beside him while the Butcher of Baltimore took a man apart right in front of them.

There was a racquet in his hands, but he’d forgotten how to use it. All he knew was Nathaniel Wesninski, bright eyes and brighter hair watching with a sick detachment as someone was  **murdered,** only for it to bleed into a nervous excitement when they stepped onto the court. 

But the boy sandwiched between Riko and Jean was not Nathaniel Wesninski, not how Kevin knew him. But he wasn’t quite Neil Josten either. And Kevin couldn’t think of anything other than that aching detachment in those too-familiar eyes even if he wanted to.

Andrew smacked the back of Kevin’s helmet to snap him back to the present. It worked for a second. Long enough for Kevin to remember why that multi-masked boy is sitting with Raven players and not standing beside him.

Kevin couldn’t breathe.

“Stop it,” Andrew warned.

Kevin could see him gearing up for another hit. They’re not facing them anymore, but Kevin could still see those dead eyes. Those dead eyes and that dead man and the Exy ball bouncing across the court while Nathaniel laughed.

How was he supposed to play this game when the sound of a ball landing in a racket net sounded so much like a cleaver burying itself in human tissue?

Kevin sputtered uselessly, fingers loose on his racket. “I- Nat- Neil.”

Andrew smacked him again. “Focus or I’ll tell Wymack to bench you.”

It worked. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

Kevin felt the weight of the racquet and remembered how to play, remembered what he was supposed to do. His broken hand hurt, and he kept seeing blue eyes and a four tattoo, but there was a racquet in his hands and he kept moving.

He got a grip on his racket and a grip on himself and he moved. 

He would win this game, for the broken mask of a boy sitting in the stands.

~Nathaniel~

The game blurred by, a flurry of rackets and balls whipping around too quickly for Nathaniel’s pain deluded and exhausted mind to follow. His body ached, his mind was fuzzy, he didn’t have a hope of keeping up but he stared, eyes moving between the members of his family. 

The Foxes won and Riko’s reaction was limited to manicured nails cutting into the skin of Nathaniel’s thigh. It felt every bit like a promise. One Nathaniel knew he'd keep. 

He didn’t realize he’d spaced out until Jean called his name softly. He blinked twice, finding his body again, finding Nathaniel, and Renee was in front of them, smiling calmly.

“Hello, Neil,” she greeted.

Neil was choking. He couldn’t do this, and Nathaniel wasn’t prepared for this either.

Jean stepped up, knee nudging against Nathaniel’s softly, it served to keep him present, to remind him of where he was and what he had to lose. Nathaniel needed to get his shit together, and Jean was giving him the time to do it. 

“Walker,” Jean nodded. “Your game wasn’t a complete embarrassment.”

It was probably the closest to a compliment Jean could afford to get, and Renee took it as one. She shifted her hand to Jean, abandoning the space before Riko, and he shook it.

“Thank you,” Renee said, keeping her smile soft and pleasant. There was something else in her eyes, a hard question Jean and Nathaniel couldn’t answer. “We’re still working out the switch in positions, but I think we managed well enough.”

Riko sneered on Nathaniel’s other side, “You play like children chasing after ghosts.”

Nathaniel couldn’t recall much of the game, but he didn’t think that fit the Foxes at all. If anything they played like they  **were** ghosts. They played like it was the last thing they might ever have the chance to do. Like Neil did; spitting hellfire and rage.

Renee's smile didn’t falter, but her attention shifted completely to him. “It’s always good to see you, Riko.”

Jean took the chance to pinch the back of Nathaniel’s hand. It was enough to keep him there. Nathaniel didn’t dare to breathe as Riko and Renee stared each other down. Riko’s nails were still digging in, his thigh was bleeding. Nathaniel wasn’t in a place to interfere. He wasn’t about to get himself killed when his family was right there in reach.

Renee glanced down so quickly Neil thought he must have imagined it, but she turned her smile on him and there was something dangerous in the way she looked now.

“It’s nice to see you, Neil,” she said. “We’ve been worried about you.”

Like they hadn’t spoken on the phone just yesterday. Like Andrew hadn’t—

No, that wasn’t a thought Nathaniel could afford to have now. Not unless he wanted Neil Josten to come bubbling out in the middle of a panic attack.

“I’m fine,” he answered.

Renee’s smile shifted and her eyes darkened. “Yes,” she mused. “I can see that.” Nathaniel wasn’t stupid enough not to understand what she meant. “We were all very shocked to hear about your transfer, could you tell me what changed your mind about us?”

He opened his mouth, but Riko’s grip got somehow tighter, and he closed it to hide a hiss of pain. It wasn’t enough, Renee’s expression changed just enough to tell him she saw the shift.

“He just realized his proper place was with the Ravens,” Riko drawled.

Renee didn’t look away from Nathaniel but she nodded, her smile leaving for a neutral almost sad expression. “I can understand that,” she conceded. Nathaniel saw through her, saw the truth in her eyes. She didn’t understand his place among the Ravens, she understood the threats that brought him here and the threats that kept his hands bound in chains. “Though,” she continued. “We consider you our family, Neil.”

Nathaniel was slipping, Neil Josten was screaming trying to grab tight to Renee and beg her not to walk away without him. He was going to fall apart right here, Nathaniel and Neil splitting into different bodies leaving nothing but Abram behind.

Riko scoffed. “I think you’ll find Neil’s true family is the Ravens.”

Jean leaned forwards, body blocking the hand he dropped on Nathaniel’s knee. “Your team must be waiting for you, Walker, shouldn’t you leave now?” 

It was a warning. Jean telling Renee her time was up, that staying any longer would do more damage than it would good. Nathaniel would have to thank Jean somehow, maybe he could find a way to smuggle him some of that trail mix he liked so much. 

Renee looked like she might stay anyways, but she smiled at Jean, her eyes leaving Nathaniel long enough for him to take a shuddering breath.

“Yes, well, it was good to see you, Jean. Riko.” She nodded at Riko and turned that dark revealing stare back to Neil. “Take care of yourself.”

And Neil Josten was begging, desperately rattling the bars of his mind. Except Riko had him on a leash, he had threats against every single one of his Foxes and Nathaniel knew he couldn’t just walk out of here with the Foxes. It didn’t matter what Neil wanted, he was stuck, close enough to touch freedom but far enough he still couldn’t have it.

Jean cleared his throat once, a dismissal. “You too, Renee.”

And Nathaniel watched her turn away from them. He watched her slip through the same door the rest of the Foxes disappeared through.

Another part of Neil Josten broke, and Nathaniel was helpless to protect him.

~Andrew~

As soon as Renee walked into the lounge space she looked to Andrew. He was expecting it, but he wasn’t expecting the hollow expression on her face. He was expecting a little bit more composure from Renee. That fact that it was gone was troublesome.

“Had a nice chat?” he asked.

Renee didn’t even offer up his special smile. “Certainly an interesting one.”

Dan pounced on them, descending on their conversation and dragging the attention of the room with her. “How’s Neil?”

Aaron frowned at Renee, clearly more interested in her comment than Dan’s question. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Interesting?”

Andrew didn’t say anything, just waited until Renee decided how much information she would reveal now, and how much she’d keep for just Andrew, in the privacy of their next sparring session. They all expected what came next.

“Neil says he’s fine.”

Allison scoffed from across the room. “Neil could fall his way down the side of Mount Everest and he’d still say he’s fine.”

There was a round of quiet laughter; Dan, Matt, and Nicky all trying to hold onto the comment and the weight of normalcy sewn into it. But Andrew was still watching Renee and he saw Natalie in her eyes.

“He didn’t look too bad,” she continued. “Jean seems to care for him.”

Andrew hummed. “Moreau grew a conscious, I’ll send a card, get to the point.”

Renee winced so softly Andrew was sure he was the only one to see it. He didn’t care if the others saw, he cared about what she had to say, and what the consequences were for Neil. 

“Riko certainly has a… tight grip on him.”

Kevin sounded like he was dying, that same tortured sound from the court forcing its way out again. Andrew had held a knife to Kevin more times than he could count, and he’d never pulled that noise out of him before. How much did Kevin know that he wasn’t sharing?

“Can’t be too bad if he signed with them,” Aaron muttered

Nicky’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull as he spun to face him. “Aaron!”

“He didn’t sign it for fun,” Dan growled. “He was forced.”

They were so quick to defend the rabbit. So quick to jump on the possibility that Neil needed saving. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. All Andrew knew was that he had no deal to keep anymore. No reason to care so much about the details Renee had and the bickering between the team.

Aaron shrugged, disinterested enough Andrew felt the prickling of anger under his skin. 

“You can’t actually prove that,” Aaron reminded them.

Oh, but Andrew could. Andrew could prove it. He could prove it with five weeks of abuse and an unwanted savior. He could prove it so easily if he just let the words slip on out.

“You’re an asshole,” Matt hissed. He’d taken up a place by Dan’s side without Andrew noticing. What had Andrew been doing he hadn’t noticed? “Neil wouldn’t sign with the Ravens and we all know it.”

Andrew slipped a finger under his bands, just in case Boyd forgot himself. There wasn’t much to the threat, especially when Andrew was only a few comments away from turning the blade on Aaron instead.

His brother shrugged again, and oh, he was really testing Andrew’s patience wasn’t he? “I don’t know shit. He’s been lying to us since he got here, or am I the only one who saw the makeover he has now?”

Now that, that was a fair point, wasn’t it?

Wymack held his hands up. “Enough,” he decided. “You’ll all send me to an early grave. Get your asses on the bus in fifteen or you can find your own way back.” He pointed a warning finger at them all. “Not another word about Neil from any of you.

Andrew could live with that. He’d have Renee all to himself soon enough and he’d get the information he needed then. He pushed off the wall beckoning with two fingers. 

“Let's go, Kevin.”

~Nathaniel~

Riko’s hand was a vice on his shoulder all the way to the car waiting for them. 

He shoved Nathaniel in, following right after and Nathaniel had to remind himself not to shrink away from the rage burning in Riko’s eyes. Jean was forced across from them as Riko took the spot next to Nathaniel, and he met his eyes with a desperate warning.

Whatever hell Riko was about to unleash on them, Jean didn’t need to be a part of it.

Nathaniel could take it.

He could survive it.

And if he didn’t, Neil Josten would.

Neil would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're so sorry
> 
> that's it, that's all, we're just sorry
> 
> speaking honestly, this was (and still is) one of our absolute favourite chapters to write even though it's pretty emotionally devastating for EVERYONE involved.
> 
> Next chapter will be up on Thursday to resume the regular update schedule and features two POV's and some interesting revelations...
> 
> As always, let us know what you think. Comments and Kudos mean the world to us!
> 
> Next Time:
> 
> “Andrew,” Kevin slurred, stumbling up against the table Andrew was dutifully guarding. “You drinkin’ tha?”
> 
> Andrew slid his half-finished drink over to Kevin without a glance. 
> 
> He was too sober to handle Kevin right now. He was too sober to handle anything right now. He wanted nothing more than to grab a bottle and drink until all of this feeling bullshit was a distant memory.


	8. Follow You Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean proves to be a bit of a weak spot for Neil, Kevin comes to a realization Andrew wishes he didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> We're back already! 
> 
> ...I really can't say that this chapter fixes literally anything. It's angsty and sad about it, and then it's angsty and mad it, and honestly, that's kind of just the moral of the story at this point, everyone is filled with angst and having feelings about it.
> 
> Jen would like to me to add that really, nothing is ever going to be 'fixed' life sucks, moral of the freaking story kids.
> 
> Content Warnings: physical violence/abuse, use of knives, psychological mind games (?sort of?), copious amounts of alcohol consumption/alcohol abuse, mentions of what Neil's life was supposed to be like, sort of hallucinations? (they're not really hallucinations but like, kind of are?), angst out the ears, unhealthy coping strategies
> 
> Enjoy!  
> \- Mac & Jen <3

~Nathaniel~

Nathaniel had pretty well figured out the rules of the Nest by now. 

If he kept his mouth shut, head down, and catered to Riko’s demands he could grace by with minimal injury. Minimal being an operative term. He’d still end up with more of his skin bruised than not, and needing a great deal more stitches than most people would ever receive in their lives.

The issue was that Nathaniel—really the issue was  **Neil** but they were starting to stitch themselves together now—couldn’t adhere to those rules.

He’d done well in Thursday’s game, outperformed every lower-ranked Raven on the court while deferring to Riko in almost every play. Still Riko had celebrated their win with viscous fists and cunning blades. He’d done less than satisfactory facing the Foxes on Friday, and he’d paid for it with a thin blade under his skin.

It had been a short-lived punishment, but Nathaniel had thought Riko might go through with it and skin him with the look in his eyes.

He’d done his job keeping his mouth shut in the hours since; almost made it a full day.

He knew as soon as he took the shot during the scrimmage instead of passing to Riko that he’d be thrown into the deep end. It was only Saturday after all, Riko had the whole weekend to do whatever he pleased to Nathaniel before Tetsuji forced him to let Nathaniel heal. And Nathaniel certainly wasn’t helping his own case.

He could have passed. He  **should** have passed.

If he knew what was good for him Nathaniel would have passed, but it seemed he still hadn’t figured out how to toe the line between defiance and stupidity. 

Riko had been steaming all morning, a volcanic eruption just waiting to happen. And then the ball landed in Nathaniel’s racket and Neil clawed his way back to the surface and he netted the goal, leaving the supposed King of Exy unguarded and furious.

Nathaniel would have passed, but for those fractions of seconds he’d been Neil Josten, starting striker for the Palmetto State Foxes, and he took the goal waiting for him.

Jean shoved him into the lockers, most of the rest of the Ravens ignoring them both. They all knew better than to interfere with Three and Four.

_ “ Are you trying to die _ _?”_ Jean hissed, the French thick and angry.

Nathaniel shrugged against the rough metal. _“_ _ If it gets me out of here. ” _

Jean groaned and turned away from him, ripping off his protective gear and stuffing it in his own locker. _“_ _ I’m in hell and  **you** _ _-”_ he rounded on Nathaniel again, finger jabbing at his chest. _“_ _ -are the devil they’ve sent to torment me .” _

Nathaniel readied to respond, Neil Josten swimming back up to the surface in the false comfort of Jean’s complaining.

The locker room door cracked open, the handle denting the wall. Nathaniel should start using the lock on that damn door, though, that might get him killed faster.

Riko was on him in a second, and any scraps of Neil Josten that had made their way up were shoved down deep enough they couldn’t bleed. Nathaniel was pressed against the lockers again, Riko’s forearm pressed hard enough across his throat breathing had become a relatively complicated task.

“What do you think you’re playing at, hm?” Riko seethed. 

Nathaniel didn’t answer, not just yet. He waited as the Ravens started trickling out of the locker room the Butcher's smile settling into place on his lips. It was too sharp, it  **hurt** , but Nathaniel let it fall into place and used it like the weapon it was. Only Federov and Bautista stayed behind. Them and Jean.

**Jean.**

Nathaniel had to keep Riko off of Jean.

He let that wicked smile on his face sharpen. “Exy,” he taunted.

And then the knives came out.

Riko was always so careful with them, shallow cuts just under the surface of his skin, deeper slices in meatier tissue Jean could stitch closed and tape up while leaving Nathaniel mostly able to play. But Riko must have been licking some serious wounds to his ego today.

He cut into the soft skin of Nathaniel’s side, just to the left of his kidney and a few inches deep. It might have been luck, it might have been precision—now wouldn’t that be a fun thought, Riko in anatomy classes so he could cut Nathaniel up better. 

Nathaniel didn’t care what it was. It kept Riko off of Jean, and it kept his rage focused here in the Nest and not on the Foxes.

Nathaniel was scarred and broken and damaged. There was no real way out of this for him, not like for the others. If he ran he’d be running to the Butcher, if he stayed he was Riko’s. But Kevin had Wymack. Kevin had Andrew, had the Foxes. Even Jean had more of a chance. They were broken too, sure, in their own ways. But Kevin and Jean had a chance, the Foxes had a chance.

Nathaniel had Neil Josten.

Nathaniel had a pipe dream, a fantasy. He had a mask that felt more real than he did. Only Neil Josten wasn’t real, Nathaniel supposed he wasn’t all that real either.

Wasn’t that how he’d survived all this time? 

He’d been nothing and no one.

Yes, it was much better Riko’s rage stayed focused on Nathaniel. Not on Jean, or Kevin, or Andrew or the Foxes. Nathaniel could keep Riko zeroed in on him, trying to break him, trying to grind him into nothing. To give the others a chance, he could do that. 

He’d survived by being nothing once, he could survive by being it again.

Riko released Nathaniel then, drawing the knife out with the slightest of twists and stepping deliberately back. Nathaniel didn’t have a chance, exhausted from last night's blade and the brutality of the morning's practice. His chest burned with the rush of oxygen when Riko’s arm left his throat, and the pain in his side was a faraway thing as he gasped. He slid slowly against the lockers, legs trembling with the effort of keeping him on his feet.

Riko came down with him, squatting down and wiping the switchblade clean on black pants. Nathaniel was really starting to hate the colour now.

Fingers closed around his chin, an iron grasp he had no means of fighting.

Neil fought for a second. Neil saw Andrew’s hazel eyes lighting gold in the sunlight. Neil saw Andrew’s hair, a glowing halo in the mornings.

But Nathaniel ground his teeth, hardening his body into a blade.

“No, no,” Riko chastised, tsk-ing once. “This lesson won’t stick, will it?” He let go of Nathaniel’s collar and stood, dark eyes still focused on Nathaniel when the gleam of triumph came over them. “Maybe this one will?”

Nathaniel registered what was about to happen a second before it did. Jean, held back by Federov and Bautista could do nothing but take the hit Riko landed. Nathaniel watched the fist connect with Jean’s jaw, watched the backliners head snap back too easily, watched the Frenchman’s proud stance crumble before Riko.

He was on his feet before he blinked—Nathaniel always just that little bit faster than Neil—and when Riko’s next swing came racing for it’s target, it found Nathaniel’s forearms held up as a shield. 

“Stop,” Nathaniel gasped. And the pain in his side was there now, he unwillingly pressed a hand against the wound, grimacing at the blood between his fingers.

Behind him, there was the sound of a struggle, Jean thrashing in Federov and Bautista’s grip. _“_ _ Neil, don’t, this is stupid, don’t give him this! ” _

Riko was gleeful, a shimmer of surprise filtering across his face before that maniac grin reappeared, satisfaction twisting him into another beast. 

Nathaniel had seen monsters before, but Riko was truly sick.

“Please stop,” Nathaniel continued. His other arm dropped down to his side and he fought back an involuntary wince, pulling his father's grin back onto his face. So what if he had to be a little too much like the Butcher to survive this? He could still come out of it. He  **could.** “Please,  **King** .”

Jean moaned behind him. _“_ _ No …”  _

Riko’s hand snapped out, closing around Nathaniel’s jaw again. He forced his eyes to stay open, to stare Riko down and force all thought of Andrew and Andrew’s touch and Andrew’s hand—

Their faces were a breath apart and Nathaniel held his damn tongue. It would be easy to jerk forwards and bash their foreheads together. Riko would stumble back, Nathaniel could grab the knife. He’d been trained as a Butcher, after all, he could kill them all before they had the chance to react, and then…

Then nothing.

Riko tilted Nathaniel’s face up. It wasn’t much—an eighth of a degree—but it made it clear who was in charge.

“That’s more like it,” Riko whispered. He held Nathaniel’s chin still, fingers like stone on his skin. Slowly, Riko looked away from him to spare Jean a glance. “Take Jean back to his room, he’s done his job.” Riko turned back to Nathaniel, bringing his other hand up. The shine of a blade as metal traced lightly over Nathaniel’s skin had him fighting a shiver. “I’m not finished with Number Four yet.”

In the corner of Nathaniel’s eye, Jean panicked, twisting wildly against Federov and Bautista to get to him. _“_ _ No, no, Neil,  **Nathaniel no** !” _

_ “ Yes, Jean! _ _”_ Nathaniel snapped, the French burning his tongue. _“_ _ Go now! Before you make things worse! ” _

It wasn’t fair, but Nathaniel could apologize later. Right now he needed Jean safe, not Jean trying to risk himself to… to what? Share in the punishment Nathaniel had coming anyways? No. It wasn’t an option.

Riko’s smile was sick and awful, but Nathaniel had seen worse. He’d seen his father’s smile after all—he  **owned** his father’s smile.

Nathaniel hardly saw Jean leave, but he knew he was gone when the door swung shut and the scuffling of struggling feet stopped. Jean was a lot bigger than Nathaniel—six-two next to Nathaniel’s five three—but he’d suffered Riko all the same. He’d missed the same meals, and lost just as many hours of sleep. Jean was just as exhausted as Nathaniel was, just as defenseless as Nathaniel hated to be.

Nathaniel had to be a weapon.

Riko lashed out.

* * *

His eyes were swollen. Nathaniel could only get one open enough to see the tile under him. It didn’t matter much anyway. He could stay here, laying on tile that should be cold and somehow wasn’t, his body blissfully numb and his mind in between consciousness. Or he could get up, setting his body on fire and stumbling around dumbly until he found Jean.

**Jean.**

The floor soothed the soreness of his muscles and eased the sting of the cuts on his skin. It was slick with his own blood. Not enough he was worried, but enough it would make getting up a slippery and difficult thing.

But Jean. Where was Jean now? What had Riko done to him in the time since he’d left Nathaniel laying here in the showers?

There wasn’t a choice.

Nathaniel locked his jaw, sucking in a final deep breath that set his torso burning before rolling himself onto all fours. The pain came in a violent rush, shaking through his arms and nearly taking his legs out from under him. If he wasn’t already on his knees he would be.

Nathaniel knew better. He knew that every cut and every punch landed was designed to cause pain. But not lasting damage. His body was a nerve ending, raw and exposed in the worst of ways, but it worked just fine.

He clambered at the wall until he was standing, legs mostly numb and dead beneath him. But Jean was waiting somewhere, possibly hurt, possibly—

The wall was black—Nathaniel  **really** hated black now—but it hid any trail he might have been leaving. He was sure to press a towel—black—to the worst of his injuries, but he leaned too much against the wall and his underclothes were nothing but a tattered and bloody mess.

It took an achingly long time—took an eternity—but he made it back to their room, stumbled through the door, and Jean… 

There was a bruise on Jean’s jaw where Riko had struck him, and the short sleeve undershirt Jean still wore showed off fresh hand-shaped bruises from where Federov and Bautista had held him back and dragged him away. Handprints from Jean fighting against them.

**Fighting.**

For the first time since Nathaniel had been in the Nest Jean had fought back. Not for himself, no. Jean had fought back for Nathaniel—for  **Neil.**

“Jean…”

Jean was on his feet and lurching forwards, hands gently leading Neil into the bathroom. It was becoming too familiar, the clinical way those grey eyes skimmed over Neil to catalogue the worst of the damage.

_ “ You foolish devil _ _,”_ Jean cursed him. “You shouldn’t have done anything, now he knows how to break you.”

The mix of English and French puzzled Neil for a moment before he shrugged lazily. “I’ll call him King to his face if I have to, but I haven’t stopped fighting him.” Neil switched to French. _“_ _ He’s nothing but a royal pain in the ass .” _

Jean stared for a moment, his fingers frozen on the hem of Neil’s ruined shirt.

“You bastard child.”

Neil hummed. “My parents were married, unfortunately.” Neil paused to consider that. “Didn’t work out well for them.”

Jean mumbled under his breath in vulgar French. “Yes, they were cursed with you, so kind of them to pass you to me.”

Neil huffed a short laugh despite the fire in his chest. Jean took the opportunity to pull the bloody shirt off, examining every bruising inch of skin, every bloody mess. It fell to the floor next to the Russian-English dictionary Ivanova had handed to him with a smile. 

He kept his eyes on that, taking in the details of the cover as if he hadn’t intimately learned them within the first hour he’d had it. But it was better than looking down. He knew what he’d find, bruises over bruises, new cuts overlapping old ones. He only hoped he wouldn’t need much of Jean’s attention this time, he was rather tired after the whole ordeal.

“It’s all surface stuff,” Neil grumbled. “Sore, but nothing dangerous.”

Jean’s fingers found the one traitorous stab wound Riko had left behind. The one just beside Neil’s kidney. They both knew enough not to be worried, Neil wasn’t in nearly enough distress for it to be serious.

Still, when Jean pressed down on the skin around it mockingly, Neil winced. “Not this one,” he mumbled, and it was a sorrowful confession.

“No,” Neil agreed. “Not that one.”

~Andrew~

Eden’s felt wrong tonight. After the little  **gift** Riko brought to their game everything felt wrong. Every cigarette Andrew lit tasted wrong, every place he wandered to for a goddamned  **breath** felt wrong. 

He’d spent an hour, an entire hour, staring at his phone, fingers barely a millimeter over the keys just itching to text Renee and get Jean’s number. An entire hour, and in the end all he’d done was shove the phone into his pocket and throw a stone through the window of some poor fool's car. 

He was at least glad there were no cameras in that particular parking lot.

Andrew knew the others were feeling it too. That was the whole reason he’d let himself be convinced to drive them all out here in the first place.

Nicky was driving him insane with the cyclical self-responsive chatter. Aaron was driving him insane texting  **Katelyn** all day. The Upperclassmen were driving him insane showing up to ‘check in’ every half hour. And Kevin?

Andrew wanted to laugh. If he were the person he was eight and a half weeks ago he might have.

He didn’t know the history between Kevin and Neil, but it was damn well clear there was a history there. Kevin was keeping just as many secrets as Neil was it turned out. Whatever had happened between the two of them, whatever  **history** existed there, Andrew wasn’t stupid enough to believe it was only from his lovely visit to Easthaven. 

No, there was a past there, a past that predated the Foxes and all of this mess. Andrew wouldn’t push. He should, and if it was anyone else he  **would** , but not Neil. 

No, Andrew couldn’t make himself do that and he hated it.

**Trust** , he thought. Could he sneer in his head? That’s certainly what he felt like he was doing. Neil fucking Josten was ruining him.

He was ruining Kevin too from the looks of it.

Andrew had seen Kevin rattled by Riko more times than he cared to count—though he  **could** count them. He’d seen Kevin pale faced and frozen, he’d seen him sick with anxiety and bare faced terror. But yesterday had been a whole new level for the famous Kevin Day. 

It hadn’t been Riko Kevin transfixed on, but Neil. It hadn’t been Riko to draw that tortured whimper out of Kevin, but Neil. 

Kevin hadn’t just seized up at the moment, he hadn’t needed a shot of vodka—or a bottle—to calm down. Kevin had forgotten how to function. His aim had been off, his racket grip weak. He’d been jerky and stiff in his movements and played like his body was foreign to him. All the little details of his game that built him into Kevin  **Day** had just stopped working.

It had taken fifteen minutes, three goals, and Andrew threatening the rest of the season for Kevin to come back into himself and he hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since.

So here they were, in Eden’s with Andrew’s skin itching like he was diseased and Kevin steadily working his way to oblivion. Aaron and Nicky somewhere blissfully in between sobriety and stupidity.

“Andrew,” Kevin slurred, stumbling up against the table Andrew was dutifully guarding. “You drinkin’ tha?”

Andrew slid his half-finished drink over to Kevin without a glance. 

He was too sober to handle Kevin right now. He was too sober to handle anything right now. He wanted nothing more than to grab a bottle and drink until all of this  **feeling** bullshit was a distant memory. Only Andrew just spent seven weeks getting sober and his tolerance was wrecked, too much and they’d be stranded at Eden’s, and Andrew was  **not** calling a fucking cab.

“You got ‘ny more?”

Andrew turned to Kevin, expression blank. “Do you need more?”

Kevin downed Andrew’s drink—well he tried to, half of it ended up on his shirt—before nodding hurriedly. 

He was hopeless, alcohol dripping from his chin and soaking into his shirt. Kevin was a mess, Andrew was about to climb out of his own damn skin, and the whole everything felt  **wrong** .

Fine. Kevin wanted more drinks? Andrew would get more damn drinks.

Kevin trailed him like a lost puppy and he navigated to the bar, and Andrew didn’t have the energy to shove him into a seat at the table. He didn’t  **care** .

“N’drew,” Kevin mumbled, trying—and failing—not to trip over himself. “Neil’s not gon’ make it,” he whined.

Andrew froze where he was, not more than halfway to the bar. Oh, he knew exactly what Kevin just said. He heard it loud and fucking clear, but he  **refused** to hear it.

Kevin, drunk as he was, mistook the rigidity in Andrew’s shoulders and his frozen form as a sign of him being… actually Andrew wasn’t sure what Kevin saw in his posture then, but it was clearly not the bright red ‘shut the fuck up’ Andrew was trying to say.

“He’s not gon’ live,” Kevin said. 

Andrew forced himself to start moving again, shoving past people nearly as drunk as Kevin to get to the bar. If he was going to hear this shit from Kevin  **he** was going to need a damn drink.

Kevin moaned desolately behind him, catching up to his own words. “Oh  **god** ,” Kevin whimpered. “He’s gonna die in the Nest.”

“And why’s that?” Andrew snapped. He was looking to hurt Kevin, to see Kevin flinch back because he was the **only one** who knew what Neil was getting himself into and he’d **let** **him go.**

But no, Kevin was too drunk for that now, all he heard was a genuine question when Andrew had been aiming to maim.

“Cuz Riko,” Kevin cut himself off with another low groan, and maybe Andrew’s words  **had** hit home with how crippled Kevin was acting now. “Riko hates him.”

Andrew shoved a drunk girl out of his way and ground his teeth together. “He hates everyone, Kevin,” Andrew reminded. “Or did you forget that?”

Kevin halfway shrugged beside him, doing a significantly better job at keeping up now that Andrew had taken to trying to beat everyone out of the way. “Not  **everyone** ,” he argued. For a second he was distracted, looking out over Andrew’s head and giggling distantly at something Andrew couldn’t see. 

Andrew snapped in Kevin’s face and watched unfocused eyes train back on him. “Neil.”

Kevin blinked a few times before he shuddered. “Oh he  **hates** Neil,” Kevin whined. He looked like he was about to start blubbering right there.

The bar was so close,  **so close** . Maybe Andrew could dump him there and pawn him off to Roland for the rest of the night. “Why?”

Kevin forged on, blinking dumbly and his forehead creasing like Andrew was supposed to know this already, like he was genuinely confused that Andrew was asking, like—

**Oh** .

Like Kevin thought  **Neil** would have told him.

Andrew wasn’t so sure he wanted Kevin to keep talking, but he wasn’t so sure he knew how to tell him to stop.

“He was s’posed to have him,” Kevin fumbled over his words. “Neil was meant t’be n’mber three.”

Andrew kept walking, but someone had cracked an egg over his head, and it ran down his spine. His skin didn’t so much  **itch** then, but he wanted out of it  **now** . He wanted out of this club and out of this city and, and—

Andrew couldn’t have what he wanted. He shouldn’t want anything at all.

Kevin nodded, adamant that he was right even though no one had protested him. “‘Fore Jean, was, was s’posed t’be Neil.” His face scrunched up in confusion then, like he was trying to remember something that hurt, or trying to remember if he was supposed to be talking about this at all. “But he wasn’t Neil yet, he…” 

Andrew understood where this was going. Kevin was far too drunk to think about the secrets he was telling, too many drinks in to remember what he was allowed to say and what he and Neil had clearly agreed to keep quiet.

He wanted to know. Of course, Andrew **wanted** to know. But damn Neil Josten and those stupid blue eyes. Damn him and ‘trust me’ and damn Andrew for trusting him and not wanting to break that trust now. Not now, not ever.

**Damn** .

“Kevin,” Andrew hummed. “Shut up.”

Kevin looked like a child, his forehead wrinkled up and a frown set so deeply Andrew wasn’t sure it would come off. “Hm?”

Did he really need an explanation? Judging from the helplessness written all over Kevin’s face Andrew would say yes, Kevin  **did** need an explanation. But he sure as hell wasn’t getting one from Andrew.

“I don’t-” Kevin stopped, eyes going wide and skin going white. “ **Oh god** .”

**Ah, there he goes.**

But Kevin sobbed, stumbling forwards and looking like he was going all the way down that time. Andrew blocked Kevin with the drink tray, his skin going wild enough without touching anyone. He managed it fine, deflecting Kevin’s outstretched hands and taking the striker’s weight with the tray between them.

“Doesn’t matter,” Kevin moaned, but it certainly sounded like it mattered. “He’s dead anyway.”

Andrew’s jaw clenched, teeth grating together until he felt the pressure of it in his skull. Neil wasn’t dead, he wouldn’t die, everything would be  **fine** .

It took him almost a full second to realize his hands, curled into tight fists around the tray, were trembling. It took him another second to realize why.

Andrew wasn’t supposed to feel things. He wasn’t supposed to be able to. Wasn’t that what everyone said? What Aaron and Nicky and  **everyone** said? He was cold, he was heartless, he was a monster. They all knew it, they all threw it back in his face again and again.

Everyone except for Neil.

He wasn’t supposed to feel and he did, he wasn’t supposed to care and he did, and it was all Neil fucking Josten’s fault. 

He hated it, and he hated Neil for it, but Andrew would not let Neil die unless the stupid rabbit was dying under Andrew’s knives.

Kevin kept going, unaware of the struggle in Andrew’s mind, unaware of the rage curling and the grief stirring and—

**Fuck** _. _

“If Riko doesn’t kill him-” Kevin choked on his words, a sobbing laugh clawing past his lips and carving a frown onto Andrew’s face. “If Riko doesn’t then his-”

Andrew moved in a blink, shoving Kevin’s weight back onto him, hand clamping down over Kevin’s mouth. “Shut up,” Andrew hissed. “Shut your  **fucking** mouth, Day.”

And this wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. Andrew’s hands were still shaking, his jaw grinding down and only a fraction of a breath away from snapping. And his chest  **hurt** , physically hurt, like he’d been twisted up and wrung out and was left bleeding in the club. Andrew was done listening to Kevin, he was done with these sick  **emotions** chasing him until he fell apart.

He was fucking  **done** .

Andrew wanted to tell Kevin that he didn’t have the right to say what he was saying. He wanted to tell Kevin to fuck off and pin all of this bullshit on the striker. It wasn’t Kevin’s fucking right to tell Neil’s secrets, and Andrew wanted to not care about that.

For the first time that night, Kevin seemed to understand both what Andrew was saying and what he wasn’t. His eyes widened a touch, eyebrows lifting and sinking as realization dawned. He mumbled loosely under Andrew’s hand twice, face pinching in a hidden frown before Andrew carefully pulled his hand back.

“I don’t want ‘im t’die.” His eyes were soft and wide as he whispered into the space between them, the quiet of his voice cutting through the noise of the club. And then Kevin was a wet mess, eyes glazed over and Andrew was  **not** going to be dealing with this.

“No,” Andrew demanded. “Do  **not** cry.”

Kevin nodded slowly, pressing his lips tight together. “M’kay,” he slurred around a sob, except he was already crying, fat tears slipping down and over his cheeks. His tattoo glistened under the track marks and no, Andrew was done, he was so fucking done with today.

Andrew took Kevin’s shoulder and jerked the striker past himself until he was flush against the bar and let Kevin navigate his own way onto a barstool. He dropped the tray down, pointedly not looking at Kevin’s shaking shoulders, and waved Roland over. It had been months since Andrew was this desperate to get Roland’s attention.

“Hey,” Roland greeted, sliding up to them with a gentle smile on his face. 

Andrew remained blank in the face of it, with no raised eyebrow or inclination of interest. He wanted vodka to shut Kevin up and enough Whiskey to drown himself in.

“What’s…” Roland’s eyes narrowed on Kevin. “Kevin, man, are you… okay?”

Kevin sobbed an incoherent answer to the question and slumped down against the counter, a hand snaking out to grasp at Andrew’s wrist. He was easy to sidestep, and easier to bat away. Kevin was absolutely inconsolable and Andrew was not having any of it.

“Whiskey,” Andrew said, sharp and cold. 

Roland looked uneasily between the two of them, Andrew’s unimpressed boredom and Kevin sobbing grossly on the sticky bar top. “You sure?”

Andrew flicked a quick glance at Kevin. “And vodka.”

Roland nodded and placed what looked like half a bottle's worth of each up onto the counter. With another uncomfortable glance at Kevin, Roland took a step back and pressed his lips into something even Andrew wouldn’t call a smile. “On the house.”

“So generous of you.”

Andrew’s fingers closed around the glass literally filled to the brim with whiskey and he closed his eyes briefly before swallowing down as much of it as he could manage in a mouthful. He dropped into the seat next to Kevin, careful to lean just slightly closer to Kevin than the drunkard on his left. Another mouthful down as the supposed Son of Exy turned his cheek to the counter and looked up at Andrew with puppy dog eyes. 

Andrew glanced distastefully at Kevin and drank again.

**You’re driving me to drink** . Andrew thought, and there was a part of him that almost wished Neil could hear it. 

Andrew could almost see him; those stupid blue eyes concerned about Andrew’s wellbeing like he had any right to care about him. He could see Neil in the imagined halls of Evermore, a dead look on that rabbit face, his teeth pulled out so something so innately feral could only grin with bloody gums.

**Fuck** .

Andrew drank deeply. One swallow, two, three. He felt the burn in the back of his throat, stinging his eyes, and damn him he would finish the damn drink. It was stupid, all of it was stupid.

“You don’t want ‘im t’die either,” Kevin slurred. It sounded like a question, it **looked** like a question, Kevin staring up at him with watery eyes and desperation in the furrowed creases of his forehead.

“No,” Andrew answered. **_I don’t want Neil Josten to die_ ** _. _ But he didn’t say that, he  **couldn’t** say that. Andrew didn’t care about Neil Josten, he could keep telling himself that as long as nobody else knew, but if he said it  **out loud** —

No.

Kevin’s lips parted in an ‘o’, like he’d heard those thoughts like he knew exactly what Andrew meant and Kevin wasn’t supposed to be able to see Andrew. Maybe the vodka had unlocked some sort of perception in the striker. 

Andrew scowled.

“You-” Kevin struggled for a moment, forearms pressing against the counter and upper body rocking back a little too quickly. His eyes caught on what was essentially half a litre of vodka in a glass certainly  **not** designed to hold vodka, and Andrew slid it out of his reach when he leaned for it. Kevin’s face twisted into a frown, but he wasn’t deterred enough not to keep talking even denied his liquid courage. “D’you,” he paused, frowned deeper. “Andrew d’you  **like** him?”

Andrew’s shoulders stiffened, fingers tightening around his glass. Slowly—slowly enough Andrew felt every twitch of his muscles—he turned to Kevin and leveled him with a glare that would have had the striker trembling.

Kevin’s eyes widened and he audibly gasped. “Y’ **do** _. _ ”

Andrew leaned away from Kevin’s aborted hug, careful not to brush against the man at his other side. 

“Day-”

It was supposed to be a warning, but Andrew hadn’t gotten even half of it out before Kevin pressed on. “An- **drew** ,” he stressed, too drunk to see the venom in Andrew’s eyes, but drunk enough to see… to see what? That Andrew had feelings? “You could’ve **told** me y’were **gay**.”

Andrew blinked once, twice, reached over the counter to snag the bottle of whiskey Roland had left out, and drank deeply. 

Kevin shrugged, still on his ‘Andrew-has-feelings’ campaign. “M’not like,  **nice** , and your  **career** ,” Kevin winced. “Oh my  **god,** your  **career** .” Kevin reached again for the cup of vodka so full it looked like water and Andrew flicked his hand away even as he chugged the whiskey straight from the bottle. “You and  **Neil** ,” Kevin mused. His jaw dropped with a frightfully loud gasp, horror clouding his eyes. “But Neil doesn’t  **swing** .”

Andrew pulled the bottle from his lips and turned to properly stare Kevin down. “Shut up.”

Kevin mimed zipping his mouth closed and immediately continued to speak. “I won’t tell Nicky.  **Promise** .” 

Andrew blinked, shoved the vodka at Kevin so aggressively it spilled over the rim of the glass. But Kevin was far too invested in Andrew’s  **feelings** to drink now. And wasn’t that just  **wonderful** **?**

“He’s in the  **Nest** . Oh,  **Andrew** ,” Andrew dodged another attempted embrace and nudged the vodka closer, hoping it might distract Kevin long enough he could make an escape or drown himself in whiskey again. “S’okay,” Kevin mumbled. “We can still win, get ‘im outta there.”

“Kevin,” Andrew said. He fought to keep his voice level, clear and loud enough for Kevin to hear him. “Fucking drink.”

Kevin nodded contentedly, a lazy smile on his face contrasting with the tear tracks on his cheeks and the red rimming around his eyes. His fingers closed around the glass. “You ‘n’ Neil’d be good f’each other.”

**Good for each other.**

It sounded so much clearer in Andrew’s head, Kevin’s slurred speech and the lilt of his mother's forgotten accent erased. It sounded almost like Neil, almost like the rabbit taunting him.

**Good for each other. Good for each other. Good for each other.**

Andrew could see Neil there, bloody gummed smile and dead corpse eyes.  **We could have been good for each other, Drew.**

No.

No, fuck this.  **Fuck** this. Andrew was quite possibly going to kill Kevin for this, especially if Kevin remembered any of it in the morning.

Kevin Day, Son of Exy and beaten down brother of Riko Moriyama thought that Neil Josten, rabbit runaway extraordinaire could be good for Andrew. Thought that Andrew Joseph Minyard, with all his baggage and trauma and toxic protectiveness, could be good for Neil.

Andrew needed a fucking break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .....
> 
> Kevin guys... just... drunk Kevin has no filter, but also transcends into a new understanding, but also is just really sad and loves his family.
> 
> Riko using Jean against Neil is just, listen. It's rough as hell and cruel as hell, but really it's something he 100% would have done, and now that he knows it works? you can bet it'll keep happening, and you can bet Neil will keep throwing himself into the fire for literally anyone ever.
> 
> Things could be worse, bear that in mind.
> 
> also bear in mind that things are going to get worse. Next chapter is actually a little better... by that I mean no one is actively hurt...or at least...not attacked... there's a lot of discussions to be had... and a lot of Andrew and Neil pining and being sad and therefore us being sad but it's not as bad as some of what's coming so...
> 
> sorry? in advance?
> 
> OH!
> 
> We get a new POV though! Be excited about that! Any guesses who's it is?
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always so so so appreciated! Lots of love for you guys!
> 
> Next Time:
> 
> “Well if Grumpy’s taking a phone call can you help with my algebra?” Maeve asked, lifting the textbook she’d dropped and plopping it on the bed.
> 
> Neil rolled his eyes as it bounced and glanced over the pages before Jean spoke again.
> 
> “Why would I do that?” Jean hissed, his accent thickening with the worst kinds of emotion. “Who says he wants to talk to you?”


	9. Under Your Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew and Renee spar and discuss the revelations brought about at their last game, Neil gets a phone call and struggles to come to terms with emotions he wishes he didn't have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely people!
> 
> Another pretty lengthy chapter, at this point they just keep getting longer and longer (there's one in the works that's sitting at around 8,000 words unedited .... whoops)
> 
> While this one is still incredibly emotionally heavy, I can say that it is violence-free! I'm not sure how much of a break it really is considering all the feelings and emotions everyone is struggling to work through, but it's still enough of a break that some of our boys are finding the time to heal (at least physically)
> 
> We get a new POV in this chapter which is always exciting, and as a result, we get an outside perspective on one of our best boys. 
> 
> A little bit of a rollercoaster here navigating POV switches and emotions but hopefully it all came together in the way Jen and I were intending it to!
> 
> content warnings: mentions of prior violence, references to Andrew's stay in Easthaven, emotionally stunted characters trying to feel things, minor violence (sparring)
> 
> Enjoy!  
>  \- Mac & Jen <3
> 
> p.s. the endnotes are a little long on this one but please be sure to read them!

~Renee~

Renee couldn’t say she was looking forward to today’s sparring session.

She usually did. She knew it helped Andrew to work through the emotions he couldn’t understand or process—or accept having—and it helped her file down the sharp edges of Natalie.

She enjoyed the time that they spent together. Genuinely, thoroughly, enjoyed it. Despite the skeptical murmurs and concerned looks her friends sent her way. But there were parts of herself, and parts of Andrew she was sure, that the others would never be able to hold. The broken glass splinters of Natalie, the dagger-sharp smile of a foster boy. 

With Andrew, she could spar for a while, chat about the things that were bothering them—Renee could talk about what was bothering her and Andrew would make a valiant attempt to listen—chat about something a little far-fetched. She wanted to ask him about what he’d do in a bird-pocalypse.

She wasn’t so sure she’d get to ask that question today, though she had considered her own answer for a terribly long time. Cages would be helpful, catching two or three of the birds could act as a possible deterrent, but she wasn’t so sure that’d be enough. She’d considered audio deterrents, but she hadn’t quite figured out what frequencies would keep the birds at bay. She’d been hoping Andrew could help her out with that but… 

But she had a feeling today would be brutal. Andrew would come looking for blood, fueled by seeing Neil beaten halfway to hell and broken but still vengeful. Well, to Andrew’s credit, only Renee had seen that much. 

The others had seen him from afar; **Andrew** had only seen it from afar. From on the court, Neil just looked bored, apathetic if not a little scared. He looked like a whole different person, icy eyes that were chilling if not deadly, that sharp, red-stained, almost glowing hair. He looked exhausted, scared and tired and two steps away from giving up. 

But up close Renee saw the awful truth. There wasn’t just exhaustion, there was hate. He’d looked like the same kind of lethal fragility that Renee and Andrew were, the same calloused bone-knuckle grip on empty air, holding onto nothing like it could save him.

Renee knew what it was like to hide another version of yourself under your skin. She knew it well enough to know she hadn't spoken to Neil at all that day.

Now she was in one of the rooms in the basement of the Tower waiting for Andrew to get back from Columbia for their sparring session. 

He’d be here in a few minutes, and Renee wasn’t in any way ready to face him with what she knew. Was she meant to tell him that Neil was gone? That someone else had taken over in the meantime? But then that wasn’t true, she’s seen the shadows in his eyes, Neil and whoever else he was still battling for control. 

Oh but no, that wasn’t right either was it? 

There hadn’t been any sort of battle going on in Neil’s gaze. It had been more of a… careful exchange. Neil Josten and whoever Neil had been passing the reins to each other as they saw fit. Neil fitting into the soft spaces and vulnerable places, the  **other** wrapping itself around that weakness with iron thick skin and fangs like claws.

So what was there then?

Was she supposed to tell him about the barely covered bruises on his neck in the shape of hands? Or the corners of gauze nudging out from under his sleeves and collar when he shifted? 

Or better yet, she could tell him about the way Riko dug his claws into Neil’s leg. The way that every touch had Neil struggling to withhold a wince despite the medicated glaze over his eyes. Or how Jean hovered a little too closely, warning her off as subtly as he could to take the heat off of Neil. Or the way she pushed anyways, until Riko's hand on Neil’s thigh drew blood, and Jean’s entire posture was rigid with panicked concern for the small striker.

What was Renee supposed to do now?

The door swung open, Andrew stomping in unceremoniously. He glowered at her, well, Renee wouldn’t actually call it a glower. His eyes looked slightly more hooded than usual, and the corners of his mouth turned down more than they usually did. 

He looked…

If Renee didn’t know any better she’d say Andrew looked hungover.

“Long night?” She asked sweetly.

Andrew turned his gaze on her, eyes narrowing.

“You’re hungover,” she accused, though she supposed Andrew would have been the only one to read it for the admonition it was. 

And then the squeeze in her chest, because Neil would have seen it too. Neil saw through her with an ease not even Andrew had possessed.

Andrew huffed. “So?”

Renee kicked her feet slowly, sitting on the edge of a wooden crate. What to say to that… Andrew was making a point, a direct challenge to see if she’d face it head-on or tuck tail. But no, the challenge was more than that, wasn’t it? Not to see what she would do, but to see if she knew what he wanted her to do. 

Oh.

To see if she could stand-in for Neil.

Renee wondered, if only for a moment, if Andrew  **knew** what he was doing. 

“So, you don’t usually press your limits, was there something you wanted to talk about?”

Andrew slipped his knives out of his bands in answer, and that was enough of a confession on its own. He wasn’t ready to talk yet, but maybe after a few rounds…

Renee hopped off her box, taking one of the knives from Andrew and rolling her shoulders back into a fighting stance.

“We will talk when this is done,” Renee warned. And what a silly thing that was. They didn’t get warnings, not Andrew, not Natalie, not—as she was beginning to understand, and as Andrew, if his reaction the past few weeks was anything to go by, already knew—Neil. 

Bad things happened, and sometimes good things too, and they moved through them.

Andrew scowled, adjusting his grip on his knife, “Shut up, Renee,” he hissed, and he lunged.

Renee twisted out of the way, letting Andrew’s momentum carry him past her. She let him lunge a few times without landing a hit, reading the lack of discipline in his movements. 

This was Andrew frazzled, this was Andrew on the slippery edge of panic and fumbling for a hold like a bubble bar in a bath. This was Andrew, long used to the darkness at the bottom of a barrel, Andrew who had finally come to terms with the sliver of light Neil Josten had cracked into the top, Andrew who’d had that light taken away from him, and Andrew who didn’t understand why that hurt so badly. 

And—because this was  **Andrew** —this was Andrew trying to figure everything out on his own.

On his fifth lunge, she grabbed his wrist, twisting it around and folding it behind his back. She spun behind him, toes finding the soft inside of the back of his knee and kicking it in. He dropped down to one knee and Renee dropped her weight on him, forcing him right to the ground.

Andrew struggled against her for a second before relaxing into the pressure she applied to him. It took her a second too long to see what he was doing and he was spinning, shuffling their weight to his advantage. Renee released him, springing back far enough to reevaluate.

Andrew was hungover, and he was slower since coming off his meds, but he was pissed off, and he certainly had a lot to work through right now.

Renee huffed a breath, shaking her head to push the loose strands of hair out of her eyes.

Andrew was slower to his feet, his left hand pausing to rub at the space behind his knee on his way up. “That was cheap,” he muttered.

Renee scoffed. “No rules,” she reminded him. Natalie was a suit she was wrapped neatly in, she fit snug to her body. Rebirthed or not, Natalie was still a too big part of who Renee was.

Andrew’s lips curled, and he was flying at her again.

~Andrew~

Andrew was done. He had nothing left to give, but he knew the second he stopped sparring Renee would saddle them both up for the next great battle of the day.

Andrew wasn’t ready to face the details of her conversation with Neil—short as it had been. He wasn’t ready to face the questions she’d throw his way. Every ‘are you okay?’ and ‘how are you?’ in the reproachful looks punctuating her sentences.

He was still puzzling himself over Kevin’s drunken discovery.

**Good for each other.**

Andrew was going to be sick.

He’d barely been able to come to terms with the feelings Neil fucking Josten was putting him through, barely been able to accept that yes, the bloody fucking rabbit was important to him, and then Kevin went and threw that in his face.

**Good for each other.**

He held a hand up, dropping his knife to the floor and doubling over. He wasn’t ready for this, he’d been lying to himself for longer than he’d known, but Kevin saw right through that, and Andrew didn’t have another choice now.

It was all disgusting, in that absolutely none of it was. He hated it, in that he didn’t actually hate any of it. He despised Neil Josten because he  **couldn't** despise him and he hated feeling all these  **feelings** and he hated that every single one of them boiled down to the core was in some inexplicable way traced all the way back to Neil Josten.

And Andrew hated,  **hated** , that he didn’t really think he hated that at all.

His hand slipped off his knee, sweatpants literally soaked with sweat. He couldn’t go another round with Renee if he wanted to, and he  **did** want to.

She was clever enough to notice, tossing her knife down at the place where his had fallen and lowering herself to the floor next to him. Andrew wasn’t willing to sit down yet, trying to catch his breath while maintaining upright.

“Sit, Andrew,” Renee panted. “You’ll fall over.”

Andrew sucked in a breath, wincing and bringing his other hand to his stomach. He really  **was** going to be sick. Oh, he might have had a little too much to drink last night.

Andrew had enough time to twist away from Renee, ducking down behind a crate to wretch. It was a good thing he hadn’t eaten yet, all he could manage to get out was a mouthful of bile and a sore throat.

“Hey,” Renee called. “Would you like me to call Abby?”

“Not sick,” Andrew groaned, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and making his way back around the crate. 

Renee hummed softy, and Andrew hated how quickly she understood. 

He was dark, swollen under-eye bags, he was alcohol breath and sleep exhaustion, he was sore and stiff and emotionally vulnerable, and Renee saw all of it.

“Bee?”

Andrew tried for a glare, but he was hardly feeling well enough to maintain a blank face. “I’ll call her later.” And that sounded like all kinds of a confession he hadn’t wanted to make.

Renee nodded and she laid back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling to give Andrew long enough to compose himself.

“Tell me,” Andrew said, reclining himself a few feet away from her. 

“It wasn’t good,” Renee started. She made an aborted motion towards her sweater where he knew her phone was tucked sweetly away. “He’s hurt badly, Andrew. I don’t know what’s going on in the Nest, Jean won’t talk about it, but I know it isn’t good. Neil was flinching at every bit of contact, there were bruises all over and bandages everywhere else.” 

Andrew didn’t comment, but he let his eyes close and tried to put it together in his mind. He hadn’t gotten close enough, but he could see it. Dark stains creeping over his skin, nasty cuts shallow and deep across his chest. There were enough scars there already—he’d felt them with his own hands—and Andrew hated the idea of Riko adding any more. 

“What else?”

Renee swallowed loudly enough that Andrew could hear it. She was putting something off. “He and Jean are definitely looking out for each other. I’m not sure it does them any good but their body language was defensive, they gave each other their backs and vulnerabilities like it was instinct.”

Andrew clenched his jaw. He could hear Neil’s voice rattling in his mind again and again over the phone.  **Break our deal.**

Neil wouldn’t let Andrew watch his back, but he’d let Moreau?

“There’s one more thing,” Renee admitted.

It wasn’t like her to be hesitant. She was always forward with Andrew, telling him exactly what she thought with as little of her reflexive sugar coating as possible.

Andrew could wait her out.

“It wasn’t all the way him, Andrew.”

Oh now that, that was something bad indeed.

“How do you mean?” Andrew pressed.

Renee faltered again, hesitant to explain herself. Andrew could piece it together. Neil wasn’t all the way him in the same way that Renee wasn’t all the way her when they sparred. She let Natalie creep through, another version of herself.

Who was Neil hiding under his skin? He’d been on the run a long time, how many other people were stashed away in that rabbit's mind? Who was the version most adept at keeping him alive? What had he been through to get that way?

“He looked like me,” Renee confessed. And yes, Andrew was right. “I could see Neil still there, but he was, it was like he was… not fighting with himself but surrendering control, handing it over to someone better suited for the situation. Like  **Neil** saw me and wanted to be there, but  **another** part of him recognized it wasn’t safe and kept him at bay.”

Andrew nodded against the floor. 

Not such a rabbit after all, but Andrew had already known that hadn’t he? He knew Neil was less rabbit than he let on. He wasn’t quite Fox either, but a different breed entirely. He was feral and violent, but flighty all the same. Neil would run if he had the option, but if he was cornered he would fight tooth and nail to survive.

Andrew was relying on that being true. He needed Neil to fight long enough for Andrew to figure out a way to get him out of the Nest.

Kevin was right about more than one thing it turned out. Andrew felt things he didn’t want to feel, he felt them for Neil Josten of all people. But more than that the Foxes would win, they had to win. Andrew’s mind was a thousand steps ahead of him, calculating odds and figures he didn’t like the looks of. 

If they could win, prove to the Moriyama’s that Neil would be a better investment playing with the Foxes—because that was what Kevin had been trying to get at wasn’t it?—now that? That was a possibility.

It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was the closest thing he had to a plan.

“I don’t hate him,” Andrew muttered.

Renee twisted her head to look at Andrew. He kept himself impassive as he stared up at the ceiling. She already knew, of course she did. But for him to say it? Renee knew better than anyone—except for Neil—that Andrew barely admitted his feelings to himself. He never admitted them to others. 

“I know, Andrew,” Renee muttered. “We’ll find a way,” she promised. “We’ll get him back.”

Andrew pressed his lips together for a moment. “In what capacity?”

Would Neil Josten ever really come back to them, or would that other version of himself come crawling back?

Renee knew what Andrew meant, of course she knew. 

“I’m not sure.”

Somehow that was more reassuring than it should have been.

Andrew’s stomach rolled, and his hand went to his gut immediately. “I need to eat,” he grumbled.

“Meet in fifteen?” Renee asked.

Andrew nodded, groaning to himself as he pulled himself back to his feet, knives sliding back into their sheathes. He’d be feeling Renee’s hits for days, feeling his hangover for hours. And he’d be feeling for an unquantifiable amount of time.

Andrew hated it, but maybe he didn’t hate Neil Josten.

Andrew needed a fucking break.

~Neil~

He’s lived through worse things. 

There’s a small comfort in that fact alone, that there was a time before this, and a time bloodier than this, and a time where he was much closer to death than this one. It’s not much of a comfort at all really, but knowing that he’s seen worse, knowing he’s walked out of situations far worse than this one… it’s something just this side of comforting.

Not that he’s counting—Jean would call it  **pining** if Neil hadn’t threatened to smother him in his sleep—but it’s been eight days since Andrew hung up on him, six days since he’d found himself stumbling through a veil of pain to see his Foxes darting around on an Exy court just beyond his reach. 

There are other numbers too, and it’s not quite funny that they’ve become such a comfort to him now. His mother always demanded them of him, numbers and solutions, data and figures, and cooped up in this birdcage with Jean’s clipped wings and his own chains he turns to them again.

It’s been seventy-six hours and forty-nine minutes since the last time Riko pulled a knife on either of them. It’s been thirty-one hours and seventeen minutes since Tetsuji’s cane last clipped either of them, and it’s been thirteen hours and twenty-three minutes since their last dose of pain medication weaned away.

They’re not **nice** numbers, but the bigger they get the better Neil feels about the whole thing, the more he lets himself think there’s a way for them to walk away at the end of it all.

But the other numbers, the eight days between this moment here and the sound of Andrew’s voice through the phone, the six days between the sheets of Jean’s bed under the backs of his knees and the sharp plastic of stadium seats… 

Neil can feel them in the hollow of his chest, the marrow of his bones, the cells of his blood. And they ache in a way that’s impossible to ignore.

Even here, sprawled across Jean’s bed with the backliner and Maeve, even here in the closest moment to relaxing any of them have been since the start of winter break, Neil thought he might choke on his grief.

There’s work to do, classes he couldn’t afford to fall behind on. Essays he needed to write, Japanese he needed to memorize, Exy plays he needed to know like he knew how to breathe. But with Jean leaned half against the headboard and half curled around a pillow on his left, and Maeve dozing with her head leaned back on the mattress and one foot tucked under her, Neil couldn’t be bothered to do more than exist.

Jean’s phone rang, cutting through the silence of their breaths with a scream that sent them both scrambling.

There’s a residual ache across Neil’s chest from bruised ribs half healed in the hours of tense peace. He caught the flicker of a grimace across Jean’s face, the backliner’s shoulders tender to touch from cane lashes Neil couldn’t stand in the way of. Maeve jerked awake, a hand smacking down against the floor and her neck audibly cracking with the force of her snapping to attention.

“Who the fuck is that?” Maeve grumbled, rubbing her eyes with one hand and swatting at Jean’s leg with the other.

With a soft cut frown at Maeve, Jean slipped over Neil and off the bed. He squinted at the phone screen for a long moment before answering. “Hello?”

He’s too far away for Neil to hear whoever’s on the other line, but the expression on Jean’s face deepens, creases sinking into his skin like tattoos. Maeve looked back at Neil, the question in her furrowed brows and Neil only shrugged.

“Well if Grumpy’s taking a phone call can you help with my algebra?” Maeve asked, lifting the textbook she’d dropped and plopping it on the bed.

Neil rolled his eyes as it bounced and glanced over the pages before Jean spoke again.

“Why would I do that?” Jean hissed, his accent thickening with the worst kinds of emotion. “Who says he wants to talk to you?” 

Neil’s whole body was a coiled spring, a point of tension waiting for release. He’s got no problem trying to fight an enemy across the phone line if it’ll help erase that expression from Jean’s face. Maeve was nearly as tense as Neil, both of them shifting their attention to the backliner and the phone call. 

Neil would start a fight. He’d go toe to toe with the invisible man if it would—

“ **You** hung up on  **him** _. _ ”

**Oh** .

That’s  **Andrew** .

Jean forged on, pacing a little further away from where Neil’s sat. “How is that his fault?”

And Neil couldn’t sit still any longer for anything, not when there were eight days of grief sitting heavy on the fragile skeleton of his chest, not when all he could think about—all he knew—was how desperately he needed to hear the voice on the other end of the line.

“Jean,” Neil stumbled, nearly falling over Maeve in his scramble to snag the phone. The French tumbled from his lips like spilled wine, easier somehow than English, but no less damning. “ _ Give me the phone, Jean, give him to me.” _

Jean twisted back, raising himself higher onto tiptoes so Neil has no chance of anything other than hanging off the Frenchman like a fool. He almost does it, he’s almost desperate enough.

“ _ Him? _ ” Maeve asked. “ _ Who is him _ ?”

Jean held up a hand in Neil’s face and spat more venom through the phone. “Listen you little bastard, the last thing he needs is you **scolding** him. He did this **for you** ** _._** ”

And there went the last shreds of Neil’s self-control. He jumped once, face settling into a near-feral scowl when Jean evaded him again. But he’s got a grip on Jean’s arm now, tugging as much as he’s willing to, bearing both their sores in mind. And he’s close enough to hear Andrew’s jumbled response.

“…I didn’t ask him too…”

“ _ Jean, please _ ,” Neil begged, another tug on the backliner’s arm to dislodge the phone from his ear and get it close enough he can snag it and bolt. “ _ Let me talk to him _ .”

Maeve gasped softly. “Oh my  **god** , is it  **Andrew** ? Jean, give him the phone!” 

And Neil had never been quite so grateful for Maeve as he was right then, with her taking his side. He knew it was mostly because of all the gossiping she and Jean engaged in over lunches. Because of the one time Jean had accidentally mentioned that Neil had come to the Nest to keep Andrew safe, the time after that where Jean had told Neil to stop pining over Andrew, told him in French that Maeve had picked up on to let Andrew go before it got them both hurt in ways they couldn’t come back from. 

Jean cut a glare at Maeve, and she mirrored it back, hands on her hips and fuming from the floor. “Give the boy his sweetheart.”

Neil might have to kill her for that later, especially if Andrew had heard it.

But Jean looked at him then, all the hard edges Andrew had managed to define softening out almost imperceptibly. And Neil has got to have the worst luck bonding with the surliest most disagreeable people on this planet. Andrew, Jean, Kevin…

But then Jean sighed and nodded. “Fine.” And it’s an answer to both Andrew’s deferral, Maeve’s insistence, and Neil’s desperation.

It’s a testament to exactly how ignorant Neil’s been that he nearly drops the phone in his rush to talk to Andrew. To  **Andrew** who’d been a foundation and a home and, and—

“Andrew?”

There’s half a beat of silence and then “Don’t sound so excited.”

Neil deflated, eight days of grief and tension bleeding out of a body held rigidly. For the first time in a long time, Neil wouldn’t mind if Riko stormed in and tried to take him apart with a shaving razor. Andrew’s voice, like honey over coarse salt, soothed every rubbed raw ache Neil had been dragging along. He couldn’t help the relieved breath that stumbles past his lips or the way he slipped and slouched to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t think you’d call back, I wasn’t trying to-”

“Neil?” Andrew interrupted and Neil can’t be bothered enough to be embarrassed by his own rambling.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

And he couldn’t help if he grinned really. Not when Andrew was there, his voice as solid as his presence had ever been, holding Neil up long enough he could catch his breath. Andrew’s voice, Andrew’s oh-so-expected platitudes giving Neil a rock bottom to build his way back up.

Neil doesn’t even care about Maeve gushing quietly to Jean, going on and on with her ‘look how cute that smile is’ and ‘have you ever seen him look so  **happy** ?’.

“You’re smiling,” Andrew said, bringing Neil back out of his mind. Reaffirming him in this all-black room that’s suddenly not so dark and gloomy.

“No,” Neil denied, and it might be the worst lie he’s ever told.

Andrew clicked his tongue once, and Neil knew—he  **knew** —what was coming and he couldn’t help it if he smiled a little brighter. “I hate you.”

“I know.”

And what a game they play. Around and around, speaking truths underneath lies, neither of them saying what they mean or meaning what they say and meaning it exactly how it is. Half-truths and half-lies spaced together and pulled apart so they’re all the same really.

Neil didn’t know what this was—pining if Jean’s to be believed, **flirting** if Maeve was to be trusted—but Neil knew he was going to fight to hold onto it.

“Are you…” there was a hesitancy in Andrew’s voice that Neil didn’t like, a too pregnant swell of tension. “Okay?”

Neil sucked a tight breath through his teeth, chest jumping from the force. “I, yeah, I’m fine.”

“ **Neil** .”

He winced. “Well no I mean…” Neil thought of the past eight days, the weight on his chest and the sick feeling of dread curling in his gut. He thought of the past six days, how nothing Riko could do was any worse than knowing he’d lost his Foxes. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?” Andrew echoed.

Neil shrugged, though Andrew couldn’t see him—or Maeve and Jean watching on with poorly concealed suspicion—he already knew the awful truths. “I’ve had worse.” An echo of the thoughts from just minutes ago.

Andrew didn’t answer right away, and in the silence, Neil could hear the spark of lighter fluid catching, feel the phantom touch of smoke on his skin.

“Are you on the roof?” he asked, eyes slipping closed of his own accord to taunt him with the image of Andrew in the sunlight.

“Yes.” His voice is muffled like he’s speaking around a cigarette.

“Smoking?”

“Yes.”

Neil sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, chewing his way through steadily. He’s already carved out a trench from all his worrying. Despite Jean’s savage comments and Maeve’s cannibalism jokes, his lips end up bruised and bleeding between his own teeth at the end of every day. “It’s still my turn.”

Andrew didn’t hesitate for a moment. “Yes.”

There was only one thing Neil really wanted to ask. He knew he shouldn’t, that he ran the risk of closing Andrew down and ending this before he’s ready to let go of it again. He could ask something easier, about the other Foxes or about anything really. 

He shoved away Jean’s flick at the same time Maeve yanked the backliner away and bit his lip ruthlessly another moment. “Why did you call?”

And he’s said it now, could hear it echoing back in the silence on the other end of the line. Whatever Andrew’s response, it’s in his court now, far away from Neil’s muddled pile of pining and flirting and not knowing the difference between Andrew and home any better than he knows the difference between one blink and the next.

Neil didn’t know what he was feeling, but he was feeling something.

“You were supposed to be a hallucination,” Andrew answered.

Neil’s face pulled into a frown, wrinkles across his forehead and lips tugging down at the corners. “I’m not.”

“You’re a pipedream.”

“No,” Neil faltered for a second, trying to convince Andrew he was real when he’s not all that sure he was. “Andrew, I’m real.” Neil doesn’t know what to make of the silence that stretched out between them then. Doesn’t know what to make of **hallucination** and **pipedream**. They don’t feel like truths, but they don’t feel any more false than **I’m real**. “I don’t understand, how does that answer?”

It’s Jean who clicked his tongue, French blocking Andrew out of the conversation. “ _ You are an oblivious, foolish devil you are _ .”

“ _ What? _ ”

Jean looked at him for a long moment, heaving a sigh like their conversation was the most exhausting thing he’d done all week. Neil glanced over at Maeve beside Jean, her eyes compassionate and deepened pools of sadness.

“ _ Oh babe, _ ” Maeve breathed, her French accent still terrible. “ _ Really? _ ” 

Neil jumped back to Jean, meeting that steel gaze and searching for answers in them. Neil knew both Jean and Maeve thought him to be in love with Andrew, he also knew that he had no idea what love was even supposed to be and he certainly wasn’t in love with anyone. But Neil knew, the same way he knew that Andrew was more important to him than he should be, that neither Jean nor Maeve were talking about Neil’s feelings.

Neil’s still staring at Jean, puzzled and absolutely lost when German from the other end of the phone has him stumbling back to Andrew. “ _ What did he say? _ ”

“ _ That I’m oblivious and foolish _ ,” Neil responded, using the same language just to piss off Jean.

Andrew scoffed, six hours and a phone call between them. “ _ You are _ .”

That’s enough of that. Neil didn’t know what it meant a minute ago and he doesn’t know now. He’ll figure it out later, he’s not about to waste what might very well be a limited amount of time trying to work his way around a puzzle he can’t define.

“How is everyone?” he asked instead.

Andrew hummed casually like he’d been waiting for the question and was mildly surprised it took Neil this long to ask it. “Martyr.”

“Andrew.”

There’s a moment, the sound of the lighter sparking again. “Nicky’s a mess, he says he told you to go?”

“To see my Uncle,” Neil corrected. “Not to Evermore.”

“It’s the same thing,” Andrew decided.

“It’s  **not** .”

Andrew doesn’t bother to address Neil’s rebuttal, trudging on through the list of Foxes and rattling off their mental states now Neil’s gone positively off the rails. “Kevin is remarkably emotional, it’s pathetic.”

“It’s… nice,” Neil tried.

“Pathetic,” Andrew repeated.

A smile sketched its way onto Neil’s lips and he didn't really mean it when he said it but he said it anyway. “Be nice.”

“I am,” Andrew said in such a way that Neil knew without a shred of doubt that it most certainly was not true. And if he smiled a little more only Jean was there to see it. “Matt is acting like an abandoned mutt, Dan is angry at the world, Allison is sad you’re gone, mad you didn’t say anything. Renee is concerned, and with good reason apparently.”

“Andrew-”

Andrew cut him off, heat sharpening his words just enough they sting them both. “Bruised and bandaged, she tells me. Not  **Neil** all the way,  **someone else** .”

“Drew-” Neil tried again with a wince.

“Aaron doesn’t seem to notice, Abby is in tears, Wymack is reading and rereading your pretty new contract…” Andrew lost steam, either that or he… Neil didn’t really know if there was another option. It seemed too much to think Andrew might be just as tired as he was. Too much to think this was all weighing him down the same way it did Neil. That maybe he felt the same confusing shouldn’t-be-allowed-to-exist things Neil did.

“They’re not… mad at me?”

“For leaving? No.” Neil waited for the rest, the second swing missed in blocking the first. “For not asking for help? Yes.”

There it was.

“Oh.”

Andrew’s voice sounded tight, two steps away from fragile and Neil wouldn’t breathe too roughly if he could help it. “You should have.”

“I couldn’t, you know I couldn’t Andrew-” Neil cut a sharp glance at Jean and Maeve, watching shamelessly. He dipped back into German, not missing the glare in both of their eyes. “ _ I had to try _ .”

“ _ You didn’t _ ,” Andrew argued.

“ _ I did _ .” 

And that’s the truth of it all. Andrew fought for everyone, protected and cared, and fought with anything he could for his family. But never for himself. Andrew had never fought for himself. 

Neil had never done much of that either. He’d always been good and running and hiding. He could stand his ground if he had to, for his mother, for his Foxes. But Neil didn’t do much in the way of fighting for himself the same way Andrew didn’t.

But Andrew, Neil would fight for Andrew. Even knowing Andrew hated him for it

“They want you to come back.”

It’s a quiet confession, and Neil didn’t miss the way Andrew left himself out of it.  **They** want him back. Nicky’s guilt, Matt’s puppy dog demeanor. Their rage and sadness and the grief that matches his own.

But Neil protected Andrew. That’s just how it was. He protected Andrew and the Foxes by coming here and he keeps them safe when he stays. He hasn’t forgotten all the threats Riko made.

“I can’t just-”

“I know.”

“I want to.”

“I know.”

**They want you to come back** .

Andrew didn’t call it home, he didn’t say 'we'. Always so careful with his words, so careful with the truths and secrets he gives up to the world. And Neil, so greedy to scoop them up and tuck them away, to hold each fragile exposed part of Andrew in his hands and never let it go. 

Neil’s lip bled, teeth cutting through at long last and tainting his words with it. “What about you?”

“Me?” Andrew echoed.

The German comes without question. It’s too private for Jean and Maeve to overhear, too vulnerable for English at all. A dangerous question between two dangerous men who used to be two scared little boys. “ _ Do you want me to come back _ ?”

The silence was heavy in Neil’s chest. Damp and wet and drowning him.

And Andrew didn’t answer at all. “Is the French bastard taking care of you there?”

Neil blinked once, eyes darting over to Jean and back down to his socks. “Jean? He’s my partner he-” Neil cut himself off, a frown working away at his throat. “Andrew you didn’t-”

And Andrew won’t let him ask it again. He’s not saying no, but he’s  **running** . “Don’t die before I can kill you, Josten.”

“I won’t, but ‘Drew I-”

Neil didn’t know what he planned to say, but Andrew’s gone before he could say it anyway. He pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it for a hard second. 

**They want you to come back.**

**Pipedream.**

**Don’t die before I can kill you.**

**Hallucination.**

**Martyr.**

“ _ Everything okay? _ ”

Neil didn’t realize he’d been expecting German, or Andrew’s voice even, until it’s Jean calling out to him in French. He looked around quickly, eyes flickering over the room to find Maeve, who’s not there anymore—he assumes she’s left to find Ivanova in the way she’s been doing more recently.

“Yeah,” Neil answered reflexively. And he  **was** . He was better than he’d been the past eight days, better than the agonizing weeks before that. But there’s a sharp sting in his chest and his mind was hazy with confusion. “ _ I just miss them _ .”

“ _ Them? _ ” Jean repeated, cocking an eyebrow in a mockery of Andrew. 

“ _ The Foxes _ .” 

Jean’s eyes were bright, half challenge and half inquisition, and all ready to watch Neil burn with the weight of his words. “ _ And Andrew _ ?” 

“ _ Of course Andrew, _ ” Neil answered. _ “He’s a Fox too isn’t he? _ ” But that’s not what Jean meant and Neil thought for the first time that they both knew it.

Jean stared him down, neither of them willing to give an inch in this game of miles. But of course Jean pushed it, because who else was there to force it out of him? “ _ Neil, he’s more than that. At least to you he is. _ ”

Neil’s not ready for it, not ready to acknowledge that those sparks of nothing from before everything fell apart might have been something. Not ready to admit that sometimes he can still feel the warmth of Andrew’s hand pressed against his torso, can still feel the ghost of Andrew’s breaths on his skin.

He thought of Wymack asking ‘when did that happen?’ remembered not understanding what he meant. Thought of Jean’s eyes looking almost sorrowful whenever Andrew’s mentioned, remembered mutterings of  **pining** and  **flirting** and  **Andrew** when Jean and Maeve thought he wasn’t listening. He thought of truths on the top of Fox Tower and the way Andrew has worked his way under his skin and refused to come back out.

Neil thought he might get it now.

And it’s funny, wasn’t it? That he understood now that it’s been taken away from him exactly what it was he’d lost.

Neil shrugged. “ _ It doesn’t matter much, does it? He’s safe, that’s enough. _ ”

Jean’s eyes were soft, not pitying, but understanding in the worst of ways. “ _ It isn’t enough, Neil. We both know that. _ ”

Neil knew. Of course, he knew that. But Andrew was safe. He wasn’t stuck in Easthaven with a rapist, he wasn’t stuck under Riko’s knife either. He was back at Palmetto with the Foxes and his family. He was as safe as he could be. 

So it didn’t matter if all Neil wanted was to have Andrew with him. Andrew was safe and Neil would do whatever he had to to keep it that way.

Pipedream indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, this chapter is mostly just Andrew and Neil working through their emotions in less than ideal ways. See: repressing them and pretending like they don't exist. 
> 
> So we got a little bit of Renee's POV here! it wasn't entirely planned going into it, but Jen and I made the decision to try and showcase at least one scene from everyone's POV (not really sure if that's going to ACTUALLY happen or not though, so no promises there). It was kind of refreshing, especially trying to look at Andrew as he's perceived by someone who isn't himself or Neil or Wymack even. he and Renee have a unique friendship, and while I feel like she knows him well, Neil and Andrew have a certain connection that runs deeper (even without either of them meaning for it too)
> 
> so much subtle pining here too. Andrew struggling with the information Renee had to share, Neil struggling with what he thought was the loss of his family (the family he's being essentially tortured to protect), Andrew CALLING, Jean being a protective little shit, Jean gently shoving Neil into acknowledging his feelings for Andrew...
> 
> there are so many moments in this chapter that Jen and I were so desperate to give to you guys, and I'm just about dying waiting to hear what you guys have to say about everything that went down here! Please, please, PLEASE, comment what you thought so we can chat about it, I can't even tell you how excited it makes me every time you guys have something to say!
> 
> All that being said, serious talk time.
> 
> The next chapter. Okay, so the next chapter picks up pretty quickly after the end of this one, but I feel the need to warn you guys now (and there will be more warnings on Thursday when it gets posted) it is brutal. Jen and I really struggled with it, and I genuinely mean that. There is going to be some content in the chapter that made both of us incredibly uncomfortable to write about, but with the characters being who they are, namely Riko being so sick and Neil being so stubborn, it really felt like the natural arc the story needed to take.
> 
> We just want you guys to be prepared in advance, the next chapter is going to be the darkest chapter so far, and from there, things are going to start moving between extremes and spiraling pretty quickly.
> 
> More information will be given when the chapter goes up on Thursday.
> 
> Next Time:
> 
> He should keep his mouth shut. He should give a little shrug and a one-liner about the Raven’s being better for his game. He should, he should, but he cared about the Foxes, about the home they gave him and the family he found in them. He didn’t leave them behind, and he doesn’t want anyone thinking he did, even if it gets his ass killed.
> 
> Fuck it all.
> 
> “Honestly?” he started.

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh!
> 
> So that was the first chapter! Nothing too different from canon here (you probably noticed a lot of the dialogue is straight from the novels) but I wanted to give a little more insight into Neil's thoughts and feelings as he repressed them lol. 
> 
> We also got a bit more emotion from Kevin because both my sister and I are absolutely in love with Soft!Kevin and giving him the healing and redemption that he deserves.
> 
> What a good guy honestly.
> 
> Please comment what you guys think and a new chapter will be up by Sunday.
> 
> Next Time: 
> 
> Jean was waiting for him in Arrivals. 
> 
> He watched Neil's careful approach with a cool look on his face, something almost regretful hidden in his eyes, and there was an edge in his voice when he spoke that gave him away. 
> 
> “You shouldn't have come.”
> 
> Neil shrugged. “There wasn't an option to stay.”
> 
> Jean’s eyes were more telling than Neil had expected, perhaps more telling than Jean wanted them to be. “There was.”


End file.
